The Last Days
This blog post was first published on meglynchwriter.wordpress.com on February 1, 2019.
“One foot on earth, one foot in Heaven.”
As calamitous as the past few years have been with advanced Parkinson’s and the onset of Louie Body Dementia, dad’s last week was really peaceful. After hospice came in, they gave him some pain medicine that actually worked (They gave him morphine the day after his VA doctor told us to give him Ibuprofen…but that’s another story for another day.). With the first dose, he slept for two-and-a-half days, and then we sort of knew our family’s suffering was coming to a close. Family members he never got to see came over for goodbyes, and they each got their turn to reminisce with dad in the bedroom.
But it makes me wonder just how long he had been in pain, you know? That pain kept him awake in agony for years, but he always showed a brave face for his girls, never letting on to how much he suffered.
That’s who dad was, a fighter who always kept fighting and never made excuses for the days he just couldn’t make the mark, no matter how hard he tried. He would grin and bear it, and then he’d try again…
And again and again, he’d confound the doctors… driving steadily even after they said he would crash, feeding himself long after they said he wouldn’t be able to, standing and walking without assistance a mere six months before he died. He seemed to me to be a lot like John Locke from LOST – “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” – yet he never lost his temper; he only proved all of us wrong by doing exactly what we’d said he couldn’t (like still making it to my graduation after taking a tumble, bashing his head on a dresser, AND going to the ER).
Dad was such a strong man, so full of love for us. His love wasn’t always in the words – that was the hardest part for him. He never felt he had the right ones, so he just didn’t say them. However, dad’s love was ALWAYS there in every other little way he could possibly show it. He brought me cookies from the vending machine at work when I was having bad days. He would stay home while mom, Mike, and I took vacations and then sell his vacation days back to his company at the end of the year so that we could have the Christmases mom always wanted for us, piling with presents and overflowing stockings. He was always there when my brother or I fell and skinned our knees, bandaging up our booboos and giving us big hugs. He was somehow always there when I needed a prayer the most, patting my shoulder to let me know I wasn’t alone and would be okay.
There was a moment the night he died with him, my brother, and I. He was dehydrated and not able to speak, but he opened his eyes to look at the ceiling. My brother and I, each on one side of him holding his hands, sang a sacred chorus: “We love you,” in stereo surround sound, right by his ears. He mouthed those words right back to us with no hesitation. When my dad told me and Mike “I love you, too” during his last days, it wasn’t empty words. He meant those three words with all his heart, and his service to our family, our church, and the world around him was solid ground for them to be built upon. To quote my brother:
“Through the years, he had good days and bad days. There were days he seemed coherent and days when he was just lost. But he was always filled with love.”
He was a man of substance, my dad, a man of true faith who never stopped hoping for his future and the futures of the people he loved. He fought faithfully for our country; he fought faithfully for the people around him, and he fought faithfully for our family each and every day so that we could enjoy a comfortable and happy life.
I never could have guessed at the legacy my father would leave behind. My church sanctuary was busting at the seams, filled with people who cared about him, who had been affected by his faith and that grin he carried with him everywhere he went. He was an amazing human being, and I will miss him, even while I rejoice that his suffering is over…even while I know he is now with Jesus, arm-in-arm as they praise the Father forever.
