Member-only story
Sorrow At My Father’s Passing
And the blessing and lesson I received from the most important man in my life
To be blunt, the last four weeks have been nothing if not difficult.
The worst of it is that my father had been ill since just before Christmas 2024, and he passed in the early morning hours the day after Father’s Day, June 16th at the age of 84.
I live more than 2,200 miles away from him and my mother and as a result I hadn’t gotten to see him much over the last few years. This has always bothered me since we kids were very close to mom and dad, but I’m married with children of my own, so it isn’t all about me.
When I got the call from my sister that dad had taken a turn for the worse, I immediately booked a red-eye flight and made the trip to see him. As it turns out, this was two days before he died and if I hadn’t I would have regretted it for the rest of my life.
My sister picked me up at the airport and we immediately drove to see him. When I entered his room at the hospice, I was taken back by how frail he looked lying in his bed, so different from the last time I saw him.
I say this because my father was a big man, 6 feet, 4 inches tall, 250 pounds, but time and illness had withered his once large body to a mere 160 pounds. This…
