General Discussion

We are living this right now with my father.

He is 82 and in renal distress (severely reduced function) and cardiac failure (CHF). To top it off, he has advancing dementia and trouble undertsanding and answering questions. He is hospitalized right now for an acute fluid retention issue that we are hoping to treat without it advancing to pnuemonia.

The last 5 years have been an absolute horror show for my dad. He has lost his wife (my mother, to COVID-19 in Nov. 2020), then his independence (following a stroke in April 2021 and bladder cancer - survived and treated successfully in fall of 2021), then his home (in July 2022 when he never recovered sufficiently to live indpendently), then his mind started going (been going on for a long time now, but started accelerating in 2024 and is advancing relentlessly now). His journey is nearly the end - the clearing at the end of the path for those who know. He has earned his rest and I have always loved and honored him as my father and as a stellar example of what being a "man" meant for him and his family and me.

This long goodbye is hard, but we are among the very, very lucky in that he was successful enough to save money sufficient to have private care and a staff of caring people in a care facility to help us and dad through the process. It is a god send to us and something I will be eternally grateful for because as hard as this is...saying goodbye and going through the emotional roller coaster daily...it would be so very much harder without the help he has available. Everyone should be able to gain dignity in their waning days and the fact that we as a society don't take concrete steps to make it happen for the least of us is earned damnation.

My heart breaks every time dad says "I can't believe this is where I ended up" or "I don't understand how this happened to me", but I can take solace in the fact that he does not have additional burdens added to the already monumental ones he faces, and I remain thankful for the small mercies afforded to us.