mughes

Dad moved on to his next adventure last night.

My siblings and I took some time yesterday to start going through the things at dad’s house.  The closest anyone lives to Denver is three hours, so we all wanted to get as much done as possible so that less responsibility will fall upon Melanie.  My wonderful sister-in-law, Rhonda (dark blue Bronco’s t) scrubbed her poor fingers to the bone.  Together; sisters, brothers, nieces, cousins, in-laws and Aunts, we all make a great team.  Melanie and Pat are the executors of the estate, Misti is going to deal with all of the financial stuff and I’m going to deal with his business.  The boys hustled to get U-hauls and pack.  Rhonda and Melanie’s daughters (Breanna, front row, maroon jacket, Sagan and Elisha, front row black coats and Elizabeth, back row, black coat) packed and cleaned the kitchen.

Meanwhile, Dad’s sisters, Barbara (red sweater), Karen (green vest), Mary Lou, Kathy (white shirt) and Susan stayed with Dad at the hospital.  Together they prayed with him and never left him except when it was time to have his bed changed. 

Melanie (orange sweatshirt) and I went back to the hospital around 7:30 pm so the girls could go to dinner.  They were worn out and not planning to return.  We had to wait a while to go into Dad’s room because they were finishing up the bed and vacuuming up the gunk in his throat.  We finally got to go in and Melanie and I, as so often has happened this week, broke down.  My Aunt’s all decided they couldn’t leave quite yet and took off their coats to stay with us for a little while longer.  Dad was having a really hard time breathing, so Teresa (I don’t want to say the nurse, because the nurses were so wonderful, more like sisters than nurses) gave him some more painkiller.  He was all shaved and cleaned up, with clean sheets and freshly fluffed pillows propping him up.  My Aunt Kathy proposed that we all say a prayer and we began to recite the Our Father.  It was followed by a sweetly worded request by Aunt Kathy for Jesus, Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Betty to come and gather Dad home.  We took a couple more minutes and then the chatter began.  Any time you have five women in a room it’s inevitable.  And then dad took a breath followed by a very long pause.  We all moved in closely and began crying . . . or whaling.  He took a couple of more breaths, swallowed, and then his heart stopped at around 8:30 p.m.  Aunt Susan said he was waiting for his buff and fluff, he wanted to go out looking good.  Even Teresa was crying.

Melanie immediately called Misti so she and the boys could come.  Patrick told me that the call came just as they moved the very last piece of Dad’s beautiful antique furniture out of the house.  There have been many miraculous moments this week, the least of which is that it was relatively quick and painless.  Honestly, I felt such a huge sense of relief that I didn’t feel that much sadness last night.  I couldn’t bear watching him suffer so.  We all gathered in the hotel bar for an improvised Irish Wake, it seemed fitting.  There was quite a lovely group gathered in Dad’s honor.  And we did toast to him.

We will have a simple service at the Scientology Chapel here in Denver Friday afternoon.  And we’ve decided to have a huge blow-out in May when we spread his ashes over the land he so cherished.

Life is extraordinary, and then, you die.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 11th, 2007 at 7:37 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.