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It has been over twenty-four hours since my kid brother, Jeffrey, informed me of my father’s passing. I am still dazed and shocked. At times, I am surprised at the thoughts and feelings that have come up at various points in these last 24 plus hours. For example, I didn’t want to go to bed last night and it wasn’t until my head hit the pillow that I could put my finger on why. At that moment, I then understood that I had never slept a night without my father also sleeping somewhere under our shared sky. Despite distance and often long periods of limited contact, the sky was our blanket that had connected us. I had not only lost my father but also my great cosmic security blanket.
I have found tremendous comfort in listening to some blues this evening. I have been enjoying one of the styles of music that had brought a lot of joy to my father’s heart. I think my father would have been happy knowing that I was listening to Bessie Smith’s Gimme a Pigfoot, Warner William’s Mouse on a Hill, Blind Boy Fuller’s Careless Love, Lead Belly’s Goodnight, Irene , etc. Perhaps I have already started finding new ways to keep us connected.
My father had been suffering from diabetes for many, many years. He had been a Type 2 diabetic that had adamantly refused to alter his diet to accommodate his illness. After having been diagnosed, he started taking medication. First pills, then injections and pills, and finally about five and a half years ago, he started dialysis. In the end, he was having dialysis at least every other day. For most of that time he was able to still consume a good amount of junk food and sweets. It almost seemed like a point of pride for my father – this refusal to allow his failing body to dictate his eating habits.
What a sweet tooth he had! I grew up constantly finding candy bar wrappers, potato chip bags, and hamburger wrappers from McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King in his ‘office’. His office (also known as his car) was stuffed and scattered full of work papers and his ‘secret’ food-habit litter. Sometimes my older brothers and I would sell my father out to our mother by bringing in some of the damning evidence (e.g. Snicker’s wrappers) for her to see. My mom fought a losing battle trying to get my father to lose weight. Of course, we could be bought too. I remember often stopping off at 7Eleven on the way home from dance class to get Coke Slurpees. I always managed to keep that a secret. I am my father’s daughter.
Ultimately, my mother gave up trying to set him on the right path in terms of weight and diet. She threw her hands up and adopted the motto ‘For your father, FOOD IS LOVE!’ Well, it was true that while visiting my grandparents as a kid, we enjoyed the many flavors of Southern cooking. The table was always full of foods such as fried chicken, Smithfield ham, mashed potatoes with lots of butter and sour cream mixed in, and peach cobbler – just to name a few. Even the vegetables would be considered a modern day health risk - lima beans and green beans cooked in butter till completely void of any nutritional value. Still, I think the motto is a bit of an oversimplification. In general, people’s vices are more complicated than that.
That is not to say that how he took care (or rather didn’t take care of his own body) didn’t bother me. It did for very long time. I couldn’t get my head around the fact that he couldn’t just put down the chocolate cake for a carrot stick once he was diagnosed with diabetes. It seemed a simple enough choice. He would live longer, feel better and see his grandchildren grow. I finally learned that I had to accept that we all fight are own battles in different ways. The reality was he loved us all deeply but in the way he knew how. I had to learn (am still learning) that his inability to fight the beast had nothing to do with how much he loved me. Anyway, who is to say he wasn't fighting but just perhaps in his own way? After all, this was a man whose favorite vegetable (it may have been the only ‘vegetable’ he regularly consumed) was the fiber supplement, Metamucil.
When I first heard of my father’s passing, I was devastated to hear that my father was in the hospital. I immediately assumed that he had died alone there. His passing was certainly easier to accept than the thought that he had been alone and had possibly been staying at the hospital for a while. I immediately felt a pain in my heart so sharp that it stopped my breath. Just the thought of it was agonizing. That I wasn’t there to hold his hand when he had passed (as I had done when his second-born son had died) was difficult enough but the thought that not one of his remaining children had known either or had been with him was just unbearable. I talked to Bethany about it to and we both were feeling horrible. We knew we didn’t have all the details but from what we did know, that seemed like what had happened.
Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. I spoke to my aunt last night and found out more. My father had been home. In fact, he was getting ready for work if you can believe that. He had lost consciousness, the paramedics were called, and he was pronounced dead at the hospital.
My Aunt Anne is my father’s sister. They had lived together and I would say that she probably knew my father best. She had said that he had not been doing well at all but he didn’t want her to call anyone. She spoke to me tenderly about how she thought he knew his kidneys were failing, that he had been having to have more dialysis (I think he was then having it every day) and had been suffering with diarrhea. They had just talked the night before and she had told him that many of his symptoms had to do with the toxins building up in his body. He said he knew. My aunt said that he had been coming to her regularly to receive his evening back scratches. She said he was a trooper and I would have to agree. This was a man who at 70 was still working about 24 hours a week and had obviously refused to give his job up even when his kidneys had essentially shut down.
My father was a sweet man with a very sweet soul that will live on in my heart. I will miss not being able to hug him again but I know he was in a lot of pain and I am relieved that he has finally been relieved of that pain. Perhaps he felt comfort knowing that he was joining his son now. I can’t attest to this but I would imagine that for parents who have lost a child, the life transition that we call death would be less frightening and may even be more welcoming. His spirit can flow freely and gently now.
I have found tremendous comfort in listening to some blues this evening. I have been enjoying one of the styles of music that had brought a lot of joy to my father’s heart. I think my father would have been happy knowing that I was listening to Bessie Smith’s Gimme a Pigfoot, Warner William’s Mouse on a Hill, Blind Boy Fuller’s Careless Love, Lead Belly’s Goodnight, Irene , etc. Perhaps I have already started finding new ways to keep us connected.
My father had been suffering from diabetes for many, many years. He had been a Type 2 diabetic that had adamantly refused to alter his diet to accommodate his illness. After having been diagnosed, he started taking medication. First pills, then injections and pills, and finally about five and a half years ago, he started dialysis. In the end, he was having dialysis at least every other day. For most of that time he was able to still consume a good amount of junk food and sweets. It almost seemed like a point of pride for my father – this refusal to allow his failing body to dictate his eating habits.
What a sweet tooth he had! I grew up constantly finding candy bar wrappers, potato chip bags, and hamburger wrappers from McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King in his ‘office’. His office (also known as his car) was stuffed and scattered full of work papers and his ‘secret’ food-habit litter. Sometimes my older brothers and I would sell my father out to our mother by bringing in some of the damning evidence (e.g. Snicker’s wrappers) for her to see. My mom fought a losing battle trying to get my father to lose weight. Of course, we could be bought too. I remember often stopping off at 7Eleven on the way home from dance class to get Coke Slurpees. I always managed to keep that a secret. I am my father’s daughter.
Ultimately, my mother gave up trying to set him on the right path in terms of weight and diet. She threw her hands up and adopted the motto ‘For your father, FOOD IS LOVE!’ Well, it was true that while visiting my grandparents as a kid, we enjoyed the many flavors of Southern cooking. The table was always full of foods such as fried chicken, Smithfield ham, mashed potatoes with lots of butter and sour cream mixed in, and peach cobbler – just to name a few. Even the vegetables would be considered a modern day health risk - lima beans and green beans cooked in butter till completely void of any nutritional value. Still, I think the motto is a bit of an oversimplification. In general, people’s vices are more complicated than that.
That is not to say that how he took care (or rather didn’t take care of his own body) didn’t bother me. It did for very long time. I couldn’t get my head around the fact that he couldn’t just put down the chocolate cake for a carrot stick once he was diagnosed with diabetes. It seemed a simple enough choice. He would live longer, feel better and see his grandchildren grow. I finally learned that I had to accept that we all fight are own battles in different ways. The reality was he loved us all deeply but in the way he knew how. I had to learn (am still learning) that his inability to fight the beast had nothing to do with how much he loved me. Anyway, who is to say he wasn't fighting but just perhaps in his own way? After all, this was a man whose favorite vegetable (it may have been the only ‘vegetable’ he regularly consumed) was the fiber supplement, Metamucil.
When I first heard of my father’s passing, I was devastated to hear that my father was in the hospital. I immediately assumed that he had died alone there. His passing was certainly easier to accept than the thought that he had been alone and had possibly been staying at the hospital for a while. I immediately felt a pain in my heart so sharp that it stopped my breath. Just the thought of it was agonizing. That I wasn’t there to hold his hand when he had passed (as I had done when his second-born son had died) was difficult enough but the thought that not one of his remaining children had known either or had been with him was just unbearable. I talked to Bethany about it to and we both were feeling horrible. We knew we didn’t have all the details but from what we did know, that seemed like what had happened.
Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. I spoke to my aunt last night and found out more. My father had been home. In fact, he was getting ready for work if you can believe that. He had lost consciousness, the paramedics were called, and he was pronounced dead at the hospital.
My Aunt Anne is my father’s sister. They had lived together and I would say that she probably knew my father best. She had said that he had not been doing well at all but he didn’t want her to call anyone. She spoke to me tenderly about how she thought he knew his kidneys were failing, that he had been having to have more dialysis (I think he was then having it every day) and had been suffering with diarrhea. They had just talked the night before and she had told him that many of his symptoms had to do with the toxins building up in his body. He said he knew. My aunt said that he had been coming to her regularly to receive his evening back scratches. She said he was a trooper and I would have to agree. This was a man who at 70 was still working about 24 hours a week and had obviously refused to give his job up even when his kidneys had essentially shut down.
My father was a sweet man with a very sweet soul that will live on in my heart. I will miss not being able to hug him again but I know he was in a lot of pain and I am relieved that he has finally been relieved of that pain. Perhaps he felt comfort knowing that he was joining his son now. I can’t attest to this but I would imagine that for parents who have lost a child, the life transition that we call death would be less frightening and may even be more welcoming. His spirit can flow freely and gently now.