Saying Goodbye to Dad

I'm sad to tell you that my Dad passed away a few weeks ago. Some of you may remember that he had been in failing health since the start of this year. He had dementia and it began to take over his physical functioning that led to a vicious cycle of him falling, going to the hospital, then to rehab, returning home, only to have it happen all over again in another 6 weeks. By August, he became too weak to even sit up from a reclining position, so my mother finally broke down and called hospice. He remained in bed, which led to other problems that are too heartbreaking for me to go into. After another brief stay in a nursing home, he came home and spent his last days with my mom by his side.

 

I feel lucky that I was able to say final goodbyes, not once, not twice, but five times. Hospice had told me on a Thursday that he wouldn't last 48 hours. In fact, he lasted 8 days after that. The man was a fighter. I also feel fortunate that he tried to acknowledge my presence by squeezing my hand or opening his eyes, very briefly. Despite the dementia, I believe he always knew who I was, or at least recognized my name. I know a lot of people don't get to have that.

 

Dad was one of a kind. He was an only child and lived in a small radius of where he was born for most of his life. Dad also worked for 39 years within the same network of communication companies. Everywhere he went, he would run into someone he knew. We could be in Chattanooga, Tennessee and someone would recognize him. We used to laugh that it was because he had had the same hairstyle since he was age 3, but I think he just knew so many people for long lengths of time and he was an easy going guy that people liked and remembered. He was truly one of those people who never changed.

 

At age 85, Dad had outlived nearly all of his relatives and he was never one for showy displays. He didn't want calling hours, and I quote him, "I don't want people looking at me when I'm dead." (A little secret about Dad: He was vain!) Instead of a church funeral, we opted to have a small service at the funeral home. It was just my mom, me, my brother, my husband, our 3 children and 1 grandson, plus their retired pastor. After some readings from Scripture, we sat around and told some of our favorite stories about Dad. It was nice to hear my brother's memories that I never knew about, as well as my kids'. My Mom shared how she met Dad. I never knew that he went home and told his mother, "I met the girl I'm going to marry" shortly after they met. Mom decided to have Dad buried in his navy blue wool wedding suit that he only wore once, on their wedding day. Next week would have been their 57th anniversary. She said they began their marriage in that suit and it would end in that suit. He was a Marine in the 1950's, so Mom chose to have him wear a red tie with the Marines emblem on it.

 

Afterwards, we drove to the national cemetery for an honor guard ceremony. I wrote about this last year, when my father-in-law was buried there. Though our parents never lived near each other or were particularly close, my husband and I find comfort that all four of our parents will be buried there some day.

 

When I feel up to it, I am going to do a post about some of my favorite Dad stories and share a few pictures.