I learned a new skill this week...but not one I ever dreamed of learning. How to make a dear father comfortable as he passed from this life to the arms of our Lord in the next. Can I ever express the gratitude I feel to all the hospice workers who helped make that transition as easy and homey as possible? I can't believe that someone, who loomed so largely in my life's picture, is now no more. The last 16 days have been special beyond words. Daddy gave me a sculpture to remember him by. But the real memories were the 20 hours a day of sitting by his bed assuring him that it would all be 'ok'.
I'm so so so glad that he is finally out of pain and feeling totally accepted and beloved by our heavenly Father. That is something he has never known from an earthly father. Yesterday, I made another baby hat to pass the time between my father's lucid moments, and his sleeping or confused ones. At 2 am, the nightime nurse, Anna, told me it was time to give Dad his next set of meds. She wasn't allowed to give liquid morphine or anxiety meds..only family.
All night long I woke to give him more and keep him comfortable. At 2, I walked in to his bedroom and he said" Hi Donna!" ...just like the old comfortable loving Dad I have always known. I was so shocked that I sat with him from 2-4am. So what if those were the only sensible words he said the whole night. The tone was one I have always known--he remembered me and it was so wonderful! How I am going to miss him. Please pray for a peaceful and smooth resolution of all the knitty-gritty details of planning the funeral, and settling the details of his will.
It is suddenly so very quiet in his house. I turned the baby monitor off..the one I set up in his bedroom so I would hear the slightest call for help. I'm not running back and forwards and scrambling for meds, and soda or just running to comfort him and assure him that he is not alone. No more goose neck or medications. It's all done. I can sleep now for the first time in two weeks. But it seems lonely some how.
Last night, after Nancy and I had arranged transport to the hospice center, while he was passing from this world to his heavenly home, I sang every hymn I knew to him. I saw a tear in his eye. I read passage after passage of scripture. Nancy held him in her arms and cuddled his head and told him he was going to be Okay. She's loved him for 20 years in a way a daughter cannot. He calls her his angel. Death, like birth, it seems,...is a miracle too. It is scary..but it is real and more importantly, it is the link between this earthly life and the next. I was awed as Dad looked off into the distance...so expectantly..as if he saw the Lord coming to meet him. I felt I was at the doorstep of heaven...but it is not my time to make that journey.
"I come to the garden alone...while the dew is still on the roses.
And the voice I hear, falling on my ear, the son of God discloses..."
And he walks with me and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own.
And the joy we share, as we tary there. None other, has ever known...
I will really miss my dear dad...and am glad that someday, I will see him again.
Donna
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