Thinking about Dad

Tomorrow, December 9, marks seven years since Dad passed away. For some reason, this year, I've been thinking about his last weeks much more often than in year's past. It was November, 2003. We received a call shortly before Thanksgiving that he was very ill. There was a lot of discussion about whether he could even make it home from California. I remember talking to him on the phone. And although he was still relatively well, the conversations were not very clear. I was relieved when it was decided that Mom would fly out to California, help evaluate how he was doing, and decide whether or not he could come back to Wisconsin. Thankfully, she was able to fly home with him. I think it was Thanksgiving Day.

I remember the first time I saw him. He had lost weight. He was grayer. He was older. I wasn't prepared for just how sick he was. As we started to care for him, it became evident that we weren't prepared. There was no treating him, just caring for him. Hospice was called. We received a bed and other equipment we would need to care for him. And just as we were starting to feel a bit tired and really wondered how we were all going to do this, Dad got much worse. He stopped eating. Stopped communicating. Father Shanley was called to the house.

And then he had trouble breathing. There was fluid in the back of his throat that he couldn't clear. We didn't have oxygen set up yet. We had to do what no one wanted to do -- call an ambulance. It wasn't easy getting him out of the house. It was cold. We wrapped blankets around him -- blankets from home.

So it was there, in the hospital, that Dad passed. December 9th, 2003. Reyna was almost one year old. I remember how much my heart warmed when he saw her for the first time. She toddled around his hospital bed set up in what had been Mom and Dad's master bedroom.

I remember him lying in the hospital bed, his head was pointed south. There was a small window to the east, on his right side. I usually sat on his left side, holding his hand. Bony. Warm. Still his hand, his nails. I loved my dad's hands.

When we knew it was getting close to the end, I asked to be alone with him. I read him poetry from my little red book. I read to him from the Bible -- psalms and other verses I no longer remember. I put little sticky notes all over the Bible and tried to read them all to him. I wanted him, so much, to hear me and to be comforted.

I didn't really understand the details, but he remained unconscious for quite some time and then, as his breathing became labored (physically raising his chest to take quick, shallow breaths), his morphine was increased. He passed very quietly. The snow was so beautiful outside -- huge flakes against a black night sky.

So I'm really sad this year that I don't have my Dad with me. I wish he could see my children, see what Steve and I have accomplished in these last seven years. He is still so much a part of my life, and yet some of the most important people in my life have never even met him. I do take comfort in knowing that we will meet again. We will resume all the important conversations that were never finished. We will start new ones with deeper understanding of one another, and of ourselves. I am blessed to have memories of him and to still have the deep love and respect that I can carry with me.