On the 4th of July this year, 12:20 pm, my 82 year old dad passed away with me by his side.

We took him into the ER the day before complaining of pain after a fall from his bed. Initially he seemed ok, and this was not his first fall as his health jaggedly declined. “Fate protects fools, children, ships named Enterprise…and our dad,” I quipped to my brother.

But in the ER the doctor and nurse exchanged curious glances when my dad quietly writhed and said he felt a 10 on the pain scale. “He never complains of pain,” I added, “so if he says it’s a ten that’s his worst.” Sure enough X-rays revealed two cracked ribs. Not a fatal diagnosis, but hardly 30 hours passed before his body surrendered to cumulative stresses it could no longer catch up to.

My brother and I were my dad's caregiver the last 6 years of his life. The 5 years prior to that my sister and her husband cared for him from their home. He survived many health scares including (but not limited to) over 50 years of type 1 diabetes, a triple bypass, and a rapid series of back surgeries that almost killed him in 2012. 

He somewhat erratically did his best through his years to care independently for his health, such as his long walks to keep his limbs stimulated and stave off inevitable diabetic neuropathy. Some of my favorite moments were these summer walks through the newest neighborhood of his frequently rotating rentals of a divorced bachelor: A bedroom on a farm, spare room of an older couple, crashing with friends, a trailer on an empty plot of land, or, later when he remarried, a whole house next door to his step children. I cherish the foolish memory of climbing onto that roof during an electrical storm to smell the ozone and watch the lights flicker through orange clouds. In the summers I got to see and do novel things that I didn’t experience where I lived most of the year with my mom and step dad. 

Summers with dad held magic.

We played checkers, rode bikes, went to church. We both loved art, though he preferred the challenging limitations of watercolor and I loved heavy handed and forgiving oil paints. His eyesight gradually failed as a side-effect of his diabetes, so my skills caught up with his own around 12. I remember his amusement the week we both drew the album cover for Titanic and our sketches were so much alike I later accidentally added my signature to his drawing. 

He let me stay days and weeks with close friends and blessedly neglected me into multiple rounds of head lice. His kind-hearted nature walked in stride with his well-intentioned cluelessness. Fast forward 25 years I found these themes echoed in my own caregiving as I struggled keeping up with three boys and his rapidly increasing needs. I inherited that oblivious, laid back nature, which thankfully he rarely complained about. The only punctuated exception was how he anxiously expected his daily cup of coffee. Should hell freeze over!--we joked–we would hear our dad calling out, “Is my coffee ready?” 

I will add my gratitude in how the PDA community impacted my relationship with him as my thinking around “difficult” behavior shifted these last few years. Sometimes in the beginning of caregiving for him our relationship strained because of compulsive PDA reactions on my part that I knew were unfair to him, like how my body accumulated tension at the combined frequent, unexpected demands of parenting and caregiving which then spilled over into our interactions with each other.

In contrast, by the end of his life it felt natural for me to talk through any defensive reactions by trouble-shooting collaboratively with him, or by explaining my own needs and giving him the chance to better explain his. I found myself reassuring us both out loud in the hour leading up to his death, “I know you aren’t doing this on purpose… I know we’re both doing our best,” as I moved his clutching hands out of the way. That I could see my own mental peace helped calm him even in the fog of his mental confusion is something I consider a rare gift. 

We lost my step-father in October of last year so this is the second death of a father for me. I can’t help but reflect thankfully that both of my dads were here for me in their unique ways that provided me security. No matter how often I floundered I knew I had them to rely on to offer support with what resources they had. Now with both of them gone it feels like a chapter is closing, but it’s one nested inside me that I can continue referencing with each life obstacle. It is a chapter I hope to pass on through my children and the work that I do here for others.