A year after my mom died, in 2005 my dad had to have one of his kidneys removed because it was full of a cancerous mass. This seemed to be the start of many health issues with my dad. He was diabetic, had COPD, congestive heart failure, and developed renal failure because of his body fighting the other issues with only one kidney. He also had both knees replaced; his right knee went through two artificial knees and two medicated spacers, all this because of him developing a nasty infection in the first knee replacement. We almost lost him to sepsis after the first replacement in his right knee. My dad was such a fighter that he just kept going even when it took all that he had to just go through a day. He was very determined to not give up. I spent much time with my dad in the last year of his life, sitting in the hospital ER department because the fluid in his body was too much and he was struggling to breathe. He was in the hospital and rehab more than he was out in the last several years of his life. He spent the last seven and a half months of his life taking dialysis three times a week. During this time, I was able to spend time in sweet conversation and some stressful conversation with my dad. On one occasion, I spent a day with him. That is such a sweet memory for me. My dad struggled with much anxiety and how he would relieve this anxiety would be going for a ride in the country. My dad grew up a farmer and farming was his first love. Driving around the countryside that he knew his whole life, brought him much joy and helped to ease his anxiety. On this day that I spent with my dad, we went for a drive because he was feeling like a caged animal. This drive was one of the sweetest times that I have ever had with my dad and it serves as a great memory for me; just hearing him tell me who owned what property, what crop was planted in the fields, and the families that had owned the different farms. His love for the countryside came out in his words.

      On November 15, 2021, my dad fell while leaving his house to go to dialysis. He fractured seven ribs falling on a wooden flower box. Like I said, my dad was determined to keep fighting; he still went to dialysis not knowing that he fractured seven ribs; he just knew he was in pain. When I picked him up from dialysis, he asked me to take him to the ER because he was hurting really bad and he was sure that he had ‘cracked a rib.’ I knew that he was in bad shape because he had me go into the dialysis office to walk him out and he never did that; he always walked himself out to my truck. To walk out of the building he needed my help as well because he had to walk with a walker always and that day he couldn’t push the walker very well because of the pain. At the hospital, we learned that he had fractured seven ribs on his right side and he had to be transported to a larger hospital with a heart center ICU and where he could receive his dialysis treatments. The nurse shared with me that he was in pretty bad shape but I didn’t know just how bad until later. With everything my dad had been dealing with for years, I knew that he was nearing the end of his earthly life but figured he still had some time. Once he was on his way in the ambulance, I went home because my sister was planning to meet him at the other hospital an hour away. I needed to get home to watch my granddaughter because my husband needed to go to work and I had committed to watching her that night and next morning. It was pretty late when I arrived home and I didn’t get much sleep between caring for an infant and taking many text messages and phone calls about my dad from my sister. The next morning, I was awakened with multiple calls about my dad; from my sister and the hospital. My dad’s condition was so bad that forced air oxygen and some pretty heavy-hitter meds were the only things keeping him alive. My sister and I had to have a pretty tough conversation with my dad about the fact that this time he just wouldn’t be able to bounce back like he had done so many times before; his body was just too beat up and it couldn’t continue anymore. My sister and I had to have a similar conversation prior to our dad’s starting dialysis just over seven months earlier. I hate those conversations! In the end, my dad decided to stop fighting and we were able to be with him as a family when he entered eternity very early on November 17, 2021.

I was thankful to be with him in these last hours. In the last months, one of the things that kept my dad fighting was that he had many things not taken care of and he didn’t want to leave them for my sister and I; but we ended up being left with them anyway. Dealing with my dad’s ‘loose ends,’ kept me from starting the grieving process. I felt; wrongly, that we needed to get all of these things taken care of and then I could grieve and mourn and heal from the loss of my dad. All this did was create friction in my extended family and much unneeded stress for me. By the time that I realized I needed to let the issues go, I had pushed the grieving aside and didn’t face it. It took several months for me to realize how I had not allowed myself to grieve my dad’s passing. This has taken an ugly toll on my mental state and emotions. I realized that I was mad at my dad for many of his choices through the years and for all the things that he left behind for my sister and I to deal with. And then it felt like my sister was struggling so much with his passing that I thought that I HAD to DO it ALL on my own. Such lies I believed! Much too late I realized that the stuff could wait to be dealt with; I just needed to BE with my Heavenly Father and my family and let God help me to heal, the rest of the stuff would work itself out in time. Instead, my push to get it all worked out made for a more miserable Thanksgiving; he passed about eight days before Thanksgiving. While I am thankful that I have begun to actually mourn my earthly father’s passing, it’s still really hard to face that both of my parents are no longer ‘here’ with us physically. Now it’s up to my sister and I to keep our family connected.

#LossIs Hard