Wow, what a month March was! You never know what a month, week or day will bring. I'm going to write about what has happened in my life. So this
might get lengthy but this is what I need to do....
On February 27, 2014, my dad turned 80..... He had not
been feeling well and we talked about taking him to the hospital but he
ended up not going. On Saturday morning he decided he wanted
to go to the hospital. He was taken to our local hospital and they did
several tests on him. They decided he had several things wrong with him
and he was transferred on Monday to a bigger hospital with more
specialists. He was being treated for pneumonia. He also had an
aneurysm on his aorta and a mass in his lung. On Thursday he
was to have a biopsy of the mass in his lung. Around 1:05 a.m. he
buzzed for the nurse to help him find something on tv. (my dad never
called for the nurse, so I wonder if he was trying to do it himself and
accidently called her) She found Fox news for him because he really
liked that. About 30 minutes later, his heart monitor went off and said
that his heart rate was dropping. Around 1:50, my father was taken
home. No more pain, no more suffering, no more depression.... We got
a call around 2:00 a.m. saying he had taken a turn for the worse and we
rushed down there. (almost an hour drive) But he was already gone.
When we got there, there was a note on his door that said
to see the nurse before entering.
To open that door and see your father's lifeless body lay there, where he
once laid, alive, was very hard! We then spent a few hours saying our
goodbyes. One thing that gave us comfort was that we believed
God took him home because he knew the road ahead was going to
be hard and he spared us all the pain of going thru that. He may
have had lung cancer and he was not strong enough to go thru any kind
of treatment. My mom was afraid he might not have made it thru
the biopsy. I have been bothered by the fact that I don't know exactly
what was wrong with him and what caused his death, but I am comforted
knowing that he is in a better place.
One thing that went thru my mind over and over was a
Buddha quote, "The problem is you think you have time." This is
SO true. I have thought for the last few YEARS to go & intentionally visit
with my parents, write down stories and talk about their lives. I knew,
I KNEW that this day would come and I would regret not doing this and
yet I never did it.... and now I have regrets.... The next few days were
going through the motions. I cried so hard for my dad, for the little boy
who lost his dad when he was young to a heart attack. For the
young man who found out he was partially color blind and couldn't fly
an airplane for the Air Force and yet no one told him that he could go into
something else besides being a pilot, for the man who took care of his mom that got hepatitis from bad blood she received after a drunk driver hit her.
Life is hard, change is hard.. I cried because my dad wanted to be
cremated and I just couldn't let my mind go there.... Lots of tears..
Going through my dads things just doesn't seem right. We sold my dad's
car last week. Was not ready for that, but someone offered to buy it
as is and so we took the offer. That was hard.. Picking out a headstone
was hard... I know death is a part of life and once they are gone, the
soul is gone and it's just a body, but that body is my physical connection
to my loved one... This change has been life changing for me.
I have to physically stop sometimes and think oh yeah,
I don't have a dad anymore. People
don't know what to say so they don't say anything.. People ask you how
you are because they know you will say you're fine, when you're SO not
fine!
My dad did donate his cornea's so there is 1 or 2 people with new
sight. I hope they are doing everything that my dad wasn't
able to do.
I know that I have rambled on and there is so much more I could
say, but the main thing I want to say is please don't
waste your days. Don't let time pass you by. Your days are
so precious and your loved ones need to know that you love
them.
God Bless,
Mitzi
