I’m back home, now. I’m back to my wife and boys, (who came home on Monday, after the funeral), and back to my job, and back to my regular life. There was a lot of legal and official stuff to do in my hometown regarding “estate” issues, but we’ve gotten things straightened out.

There were people to meet, documents to sign, decisions to be made, and grief to be dealt with. There were old pictures to gather up and go through, sentimental items to find and hold, and previously unknown stories and anecdotes to be heard.

During the visitation and funeral, I met more people than I normally meet in a year in my regular routine. My dad made friends easily, and he kept them forever. My brother and I figure between our step-dad’s funeral three years ago, and our dad’s funeral this week, we’ve now met every person in our hometown.

During these several days, I ate more food each day than I would normally eat in two days in my regular routine. Most all of the food was home-cooked and downright damn good. In the South, we feed and eat during grieving.

But then, after revisiting and honoring a life passed, we have our own present and future lives to get back to and on with. Events have made me reminiscence on old times, reweigh old experiences, and revisit old feelings. I have some old and new stories to tell, and I’ll relate them here sometime.

Bullgrit

My dad finally passed on today. I hope Heaven appreciates him as much as we on Earth have.

Bullgrit

My dad is still hanging onto life. He’s a tough nut to crack.

It may have sounded weird for me to say, “He is at his end, definitely,” in the previous post, but that “definitely” is something that’s new for us as his family. Since I never posted anything about his stint in the hospital this past summer, (because he didn’t want me to at the time), most of you aren’t privy to how on and off his imminent death was.

Over his 60 days in the hospital — at Duke — he was on the verge of death three times. We had “the Talk” with the doctors multiple times about how long and hard to try to save his life. I’ll tell you, that Talk is some seriously emotional shit. It’s not everyone who gets to or has to go through that discussion, and it can be pretty damn nerve-wracking to go through it three times in 2 months.

That up and down roller-coaster ride, “he’s dying,” “he’s getting better,” “he’s dying,” “he’s getting better,” “he’s dying,” “he’s getting better,” will wear the hell out of your nerves.

And here’s something I didn’t know: a living will — that legal paper that states the patient’s desires for how long and hard to fight for their life — ain’t binding, apparently. The individual who has personal authority over the patient can override anything on that paper. When we had the Talks, we stuck with what my dad had written in his will, but we had the ability to ignore it if we had wanted to.

So, anyway, about that “definitely” word.

When my dad was initially diagnosed with cancer, back in 1998, death was a potential outcome. But it wasn’t imminent, and it seemed to be stopped by the surgery, then. Even when he was given the 6-18 months to live back in 2009, he lived well right past 6 months and into 12 months. Real, actual, death just didn’t seem to really, actually, be coming for him.

Then we went through the summer of near death experiences, and he came out the other end of the few months actually seeming to be doing well. Looking at my dad, you don’t see a “tough guy.” He’s not a lumberjack kind of man. He’s just a normal man to the eye, but damn he’s resilient.

So, this idea that “my dad is dying” started to have a kind of “yeah, right” feel to it. He got and overcame cancers like my kids get and overcome colds. How can you take his mortality seriously when he’s shrugged off the Grim Reaper’s touch 3, 4, 5 times.

But this time, they’re telling us this is really it. There’s no more odds to beat, no more hanging in there to do, no more pulling through possible. But, they said, “he may last up to a week,” and be surely be darn, he’s going to last out that whole week. A man that can hang in there and pull back from the edge of death as many times as he has over the past years doesn’t just give up when someone says he can’t pull back this time.

It’s a happy and sad thing that he’s holding onto life this strongly.

Bullgrit

My dad will die this week.

In 1998, my dad was diagnosed with colon cancer. A couple of surgeries “cured” him for a few years, but then more cancer was found in another organ. He had another very major surgery to “cure” that.

Then more cancer was found in other organs. This time, he was given 6-18 months to live. Chemo and radiation treatments seemed to be holding off his end, but the poisons were playing hell with his body. A little over 12 months into his 6-18 months, he had another surgery, this year, to remove tumors.

The surgery itself went fine, and he was recovering well in the hospital for a week. Then, on the day the doctors said he would be going home, something went horribly wrong. A very bad infection kept him in the hospital for two more months. During this time, (this summer), he was near death at least three times. He spent a total of three weeks in intensive care barely clinging to life.

When he was at last released from the hospital, a couple months ago, he was physically just a shell of the man he used to be. He couldn’t walk, get up, or hardly do anything for himself. Physical therapy was helping to bring him back to mobility, but it was slow going.

Over the past couple of weeks he was starting to walk a bit. He was able to get about the house, and everyone could see he was at least showing he might actually fully recover from his ordeal. He had a doctor’s appointment last week to go over some scans and x-rays the docs had taken recently, and he walked into and out of the doctor’s office.

Unfortunately, the scans and x-rays showed a lot of tumors in his body. Lots of tumors. There would be no chemo or radiation or surgeries to “cure” these. He was in the closing chapter of his life. The only unknown was how long this chapter would be.

My family and I planned to go up to visit him this weekend. We expected a day of hanging out with him; to let his grandchildren see him and play around him, maybe one last time. But Saturday morning, when we were only about half an hour from arriving, his sister, my aunt, (who has been helping his wife care for him), called me and said things were turning very bad that morning. We dropped our boys off with my mother — this would not be a day for them to see their granddaddy — and rushed over to my dad’s house.

When we arrived, my dad was lying in bed, “awake” only by having his eyes open. He was barely aware of his surroundings and the people around him. His body was failing. His hospice nurse — assigned to him only a couple days before — came over and assessed the situation.

It was explained to us, in detail and clearly: the cancer is killing him, now. He may die in the next hour, or he might manage to last up to a week. There are no more odds of survival, no more life saving or life extending actions or medications to take. He is at his end, definitely.

To be continued…

Bullgrit