Peace at Last

Dad passed about 9:30AM this morning. I was at hospital last night until about 8PM, and in a way felt guilty for not staying the night. I did get a smirk out of him briefly by saying that I was going to take all his money and keep it from my siblings.

He had oxygen and nothing else. He didn't appear to be in any pain last night, but I did have the nurse administer a little bit more morphine last night just to be sure he wasn't uncomfortable.

Last night I barely slept--each time I would awaken, I didn't want to be awake and assumed the phone would ring and I was so exhausted that I couldn't imagine getting up and driving back to the hospital. Somehow I comforted myself and got back to sleep until morning, when it got light out and then I just couldn't sleep. But this was the worst day for me, and I didn't want to get out of bed. It just wasn't going to be good.

As soon as I got up, I began going through some papers I had picked up at Dad's house and tossing those that didn't have any future financial impact. I was a bit happy that I had an extra hour with the time change to do some of this. Then I went and got the boxes out of my car with more papers and brought them into the house and began going through them.

I decided I wanted to try and run around 9:00, after talking to my brother Mike and deciding when we would go back to the hospital. I put my running clothes on and was just about to go out the door to the Y and decided to call the hospital.

I kid you not--I am psychic--I called and they said they were just about to pronounce him dead. Did I know? Sure. I suppose it was the last time, and I hope it's for awhile, that a run/workout is thwarted by severe illness or impending death.

I immediately called Mike and told him to come get me so we could go see him and make arrangements, and then I called my siblings to let them know. In a way, I was very curt and methodical, but only because I knew this would be the beginning of more things I needed to do.

Part of me didn't want to see Dad's body, but then we ended up spending a couple of hours in his room with him after getting things straight with the Chaplain about his cremation arrangements. And it was good to see he had passed with a slight smirk on his face, like he had beat all the rest of us to the punch of making the decision for him and he had gone when he wanted to.

I'm not saying any of this has been easy for me--it hasn't--but I am glad it is over, and now I can begin on the next phase of honoring his life by carrying out what he wanted me to do. And once that is nearly complete or at least under control (the sale of the house will take some months, I expect, and so I will need to continue paying bills and getting that process moving along), I want nothing more than to get back to my old life, which I had been questioning and wondering if it was the right thing to do and whether I was overly invested in something that really didn't matter.

What I learned from my Dad is that he LIVED even while he may have known he was ailing, and he did things he wanted to do and on his terms. When I first began doing triathlons, he didn't understand why I would want to push myself this way, but after a time he understood that I was just doing what he was doing, which was doing what brought me enjoyment, without judging why. Dad liked moving around, and he liked using his incredible intellect, and that's what I like doing. I may not express my intellect the way he did, but I do it nonetheless. I bet if he could have seen me pressing to get information about him and his condition so that I could determine whether we were doing the right things by him that he would be very proud of me, and that even though some people around me perceived it to be very unemotional, that in fact, I was being quite passionate about trying to do the very best I could do for him.

I discovered once again that very few people understand the difference between passion and emotion. Maybe I didn't even understand the difference. I question myself for sometimes being overly passionate, and lose sight and accuse myself of having useless emotions. Don't get me wrong--emotions are a good thing--but emotions are inert things without underlying passion. I know what it is to feel sad and hopeless and lonely and happy and in love. But what I want to guide me is not emotion but passion and compassion. That's it.

And so as I move into this next phase of accomplishing things on my Dad's behalf, I hope that I can continue to carry forward my passion for doing the right thing, my passion for living, and my compassion for myself and everyone else. I have and I will continue to be fallible and question myself. But I can keep sight of my core being and that's all there is.