It's interesting to me how the soft underbelly of those we love comes forth most profoundly in their birth & then in their passing.
Another chapter in a whole lifetime seemed crammed in to that last month my dad and I had together. At home he rustled the pages of his last presentation paper for his Wranglers group about the brain while asking me if flowers have a memory since they repeat the life cycle. I told him, no, that was simply genetic coding & so we went round & round as usual & then I went home & actually tried to find out on the internet if flowers DO have tiny brains.
I stood by my father's hospital bed after our 'last' real meal together of salmon, baked potato & fruit crisp, which he had gobbled down with gusto. On my way out, he motioned for me to lean down closer & closer until he could peck me on the cheek & then I kissed him on his head & he thanked me, as he had thanked Moe the big guy who had turned him & the nurses who had shifted his pillows or brought him ice. Chivalry until the end.
A week later, for all intents & purposes my dad mostly laid in twilight between two worlds. I was wishing he didn't have to experience the shutting down of time & space & organs & thought somehow a head on collision would be more humane. I was dreading the drive again to witness his disappearance, although at the same time I wished I was there holding his hand so he was not braving this journey alone.
I took solace that his soul was slowly arching away from the constraints of earthly plane. How strange though it seemed that one so wearily encased could rally for that final flight! Those days were so precious to me; perhaps more so then all the years we had leading up to them. The aching wait, the man child, the long rest into the long sweet sleep of peace. I believe you are truly in your element now.
God Speed, Daddy Dear xo
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