One year ago today my Dad passed away. It was 8 days after Sara was born. I clearly remember all the small details. I got a call the day after I had Sara. My Dad's wife at the time told me that he had gone into the hospital with a bout of pancreatitis. My instant thought was that this wasn't good. Most people that have parcreatitis recover, it's just a really painful illness. Well, call it my drama queen side, the fact that I was emotional from just having a baby, or just instincts, but I knew, for some reason that I wasn't going to get to see him functioning again. I had talked to him a little on the phone over the next few days. (Remember, I just had a new baby.) Anyway, on Sept. 27, I got a call from my little brother John who had just gotten a call from the hospital that my Dad was in that said he had went into cardiac arrest and had been without oxygen for about 5 minutes. When we finally got a hold of my Dad's wife, she had the nurse explain what had happened. He was really sick. He hadn't eating so the doctors had placed a feeding tube and he hadn't been digesting the formula stuff correctly. He ended up massively vomiting and aspirating on that vomit. Which means he had taken a breath and it went into his lungs. When stomach acid goes into your lungs, you're in trouble. From that point he went into cardiac arrest and all of his major organs shut down. He had an anoxic brain injury that the Doctors said was irreversible. He was in essence, brain dead. As a family we made the decision to take him off life support 3 days later. When we were all there, we said our good bye's and watched him struggle for breaths for 6 hours. It was a horrible thing to watch your Dad, a man that always seemed so strong to fight for every breath that was in him. It sucked. I hope to never have to see something quiet so difficult again. Anyway, my Dad was not a soft man. He had a hard life. He was a quick tempered man who didn't always see life clearly. But he loved me, me loved my brothers, he loved my Mom. I miss him terribly. I miss him calling saying "Whatcha been up to dinger?" I miss his crocked smile and the way his face lit up when he saw me or my kids hugged him. I wish, with everything I have in me, that I would've made him more of a priority , made sure I called him more frequently and spent more quality time with him. I honestly thought I had a life time to be with him.
I think about him daily and hope he is singing and dancing with my Mom in heaven.
