Today is the tenth anniversary of my father's passing. I remember February 2, 1999 in detail and even the week prior to that. It is one of those days in which all four of us were at the house at the same time. It was 7:00 P.M. and "Jeopardy" had just started and he suddenly convulsed and passed. We called the EMS and they spent about an hour trying to revive him. My sister was just getting ready to wash the dog, Missy, and the dog was in the tub. The dog was in the tub four about four hours I bet. After the hubbub of the EMS crew, my mom, sister, and I just sat in the living room talking about dad. By the way, Missy was still in the tub.
I also remember as the EMS crew was in the living room with dad laying on the floor, one of our outside dogs, King, came in. King never comes into the house unless there was a thunderstorm. (Big scare-dy cat) King just looked at him and wanted to know what was going on. He did not try to intrude, but we got him out of the way quickly.
I remember the next few days with making funeral arrangements and family coming in for the funeral. It's still surreal but I know it's something that families go through all the time all over the world, yet in different manners of paying homage through funerals. Dad had been ill for a long time, but he was one of those people you can see who is struggling with his issues, but didn't want to let his family down. I remember that he took naps and that is something I treasure myself. He like to cook and I remember what he had cooked on the last day. He baked a cake and cooked pork for dinner. That is a passion he passed to my sister. She likes to cook and share what she cooks. No one else would eat the cake that he baked, so I ate it all. And just look at me - of all people, huh!
These aren't all the memories I have of that day or of that week, but just some of them. It wasn't a tragic time, but it was somber but memorable.
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I've never written about this before, but I thought you might share my experience - just to compare points of view. This is a once in a lifetime thing, of course, for all of us because we only get one Dad.
ReplyDeleteI remember the day (Sunday, September 24, 2006) better than the date - all the years run together in my memory - that my Dad died.
First, he was so active, I think the family thought he would live to be 100. He had survived a heart triple by pass. And the time the tractor rolled over on him. Not to mention WW2 and a wreckless youth in Wetzel County.
He was tough.
He was extrordinarily tired the year before, when he finally went to see the cancer doctor. That visit lead to others, and finally a diagnosis of colon cancer. The operation (in September of 2005) was not successful so he landed in the ER for emergency surgery. Then to a nursing home --(the idea of which he hated. And so did I. But we made that decision for care and therapy reasons.) And I visited him every night from the time he signed on to "the home" until he did come home, to his home in Sun Valley, that Sunday.
I cooked Sunday dinner (it's a wonder that didn't kill him right off. I don't have very much luck with cooking, you see.) complete with cherry pie for desert. And my Mom and my husband were there.
He watched the deer feeding outside the diningroom window. (Something we all love to do.) He was too tired after dinner to go back to the "home", but I hurried him into the chair lift to get him downstairs into the car. He died in the chair lift -- two steps from the bottom. But, he did get his wish: to die at home. In his own home, with people who knew and loved him. And I think we were so lucky to have had that time with him. He had lived a year after the surgery.
I won't serve cherry pie at any dinner ever again.