Last Visit with My Father

I am so often inspired by something I see, hear or read. This is not the first time I was moved to tears and to write after reading MOTPG. (Mom of the Perpetually Grounded. I'd insert a link to her blog, but you, my readers, should know I don't know how to do anything technical like that!)

The summer before I turned 40 (5 years ago, I can hardly believe the passing of time...) I took my very first vacation. Not the first vacation I've ever been on, but the first vacation I've ever been on for me. I went to Georgia for the weekend to learn how to climb trees at Tree Climbers International. (see above for link insert.) That was a great trip which sparked a new but ever-present hobby, but the connection it holds to this post is that I was out of town.

My Dad had been living with my sister for about two years before that summer, up until a few months when he went into a nursing home. Now nursing homes have a special memory to me, and it is not a good memory. My Great Grandmother was in a nursing home in Benton Harbor and when I was young, I don't know, 6 or 7 or 8, we used to be taken there to visit her. I really have no memories of my Great Grandmother other than her in a nursing home. She was an old woman who would yell out in German to us. She would say things to my Grandmother and she didn't recognize my Mother. For me, I just wanted to leave, but I also realized how important it was for my Mother and Grandmother to visit her. And my dear Great Aunt Dot (who I later learned was called Dot not because she wore polka dots, but because it was short for Dorothy. I still smile and am comforted by polka dots to this day because of her and my memory of her.)

So it was hard for me to see my Dad in a nursing home. And I didn't get the chance to visit him often there as he died soon after moving in. My son was away for the summer, interning at the White House. My son and Father were very close. I was a single parent and we lived the first twelve years of his life with my parents in the home I grew up in. (The first ten with both my parents, until my Mother died.) So they were close; there was a great relationship between my son and both of my parents. My son never had to see his Grandfather in a nursing home, and I think that was my Dad's plan. I don't know what it says on my Father's Death Certificate and what was the official cause of death, but for me it will always be that he just was too tired and he just gave up--It was just too hard for him to live.

So that brings me to my last visit with my Father. My son was away for the summer and I was about to go on my first vacation. I went to visit my Dad a few days before I left. I pulled the curtain closed on his semi-private room; I sat with him on his bed; I gave him a manicure. He was pretty much non-responsive, at least until I cut a nail too short... I read to him from the Bible. I still remember what passage. Psalm 51. I'm sure I was inspired to read that passage to him. I hope it gave him some relief, some peace. It remains one of my favorite Psalms, bringing me both peace and sadness when I read it. He died less than a week later when I was in Atlanta.

I know my Father is in Heaven along with my Mother. I look forward to seeing them both again one day. I will always remember the last visit with my Father. And I will remember the last gift my Father gave: not having my son have the memories of visiting his Grandfather in a nursing home.