My dad is dying. He is in hospice, and I will be going up there again tomorrow to see him. According to my mom and the nurses there, he looks like he's only going to be alive for another couple of days.
When I went up a few days ago, I had a lucid conversation with him, just before he began to slip away. It wasn't the talk I was hoping to have, but my wife helped me to see how wonderful it really was.
I am afraid of forgetting things like this, so I made a video of me talking about this conversation. Unless you know me--and even if you do--this might be pretty boring. It's really for me and those who care about me. So, for us, I offer this account of my last conversation with my dad:
My Last Conversation With Dad
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
7 comments:
Thomas,
Thanks very much for sharing your thoughts on this very difficult experience. Your dad's story deeply moved me. I don't yet know what it's like to lose a parent. But, when it happens, I pray that I will experience the same sense of sonship as you have. My prayers are with you and your family.
Eric Sidler
thanks thomas.
thank you for sharing this.
i'm so sorry you're having to live through this.
i am fifty-nine.
my father died of a heart-attack suddenly when he was thirty-six in november of 1962.
i was thirteen.
my last living memory of him was him kissing me "goodnight" on my forehead.
he would leave for work the next morn before i got up for school.
we never got to say good-bye.
he was a baptist deacon, and a teetotaler.
but i would so love to have had a whiskey or a coffee or whatever with him to say good-bye,
good-byes are so seldom what we wish they could be . . .
and there is just no good time to say good-bye in whatever way to those we love.
you, your dad and your entire family are in our prayers, dear brother / father.
shalom~
dh
Wow. The complete opposite of boring. My prayers to your family in this time. My wife thought she would be in this time with her dad last year only to be blessed with recovery. I can almost understand. What a great gift you received to have dad being dad one more time.
Sweet T, This sucks. I really love you. Drive carefully. L.
F. Thomas, I am so sorry. I know this is a very difficult season right now. I so appreciate you sharing your last conversation with you dad. It ministered to me. I lost my mother when I was 14 and as she was dying she told me the same thing you spoke about. She would tell me that it's a natural order of things in life and it would be way worse for her to loose me. It doesn't take away the pain of the loss though. Your family is in my heart. Praying for you.
I am writing this on Tuesday, a little after 5pm CST, two days after you recorded and posted the video. Your twitter update from about an hour ago mentions that you are with your dad at hospice, giving him ice cream. I am glad you got these extra days. I am praying that everything that needs to be said will be said, and that you will have the grace of having no regrets in the years to come.
Love to all of your family.
Father Thomas,
I didn't find your thoughts to be boring at all. I still have my parents but I can only hope that when the time comes I'll be able to have such a meaningful and loving experience. My thoughts are with you and your mom Ginger and your sisters of whom I only know Anna. I was a Montessori student under your mom at X. and taught with Anna a year ago. You are all in my thoughts and prayers, Beth R.
Post a Comment