Well, my dad died about an hour and half ago. He was suffering from pulmonary fibrosis and a weakened heart. He was hanging in there pretty well - he was golfing two weeks ago - but he took a fast turn for the worst. He woke up last Friday shaking uncontrollably with an elevated heart rate. We went right to the ER and he was admitted before noon.
From the jump the prognosis was not good, but the first day he was the doctor was talking to him about golfing the following week. But it wasn’t to be. His SATs would not stay up with any exertion. We made the decision to move to in hospital hospice this afternoon. At that point he came off high-flow oxygen and was just having his symptoms treated, but his breathing was labored right away. It was several rounds of morphine and valium and watching him gasp for breath for about six hours before he finally faded away.
My mom is a wreck. My dad was such a good man. He was an Air Force vet. He was an engineer. He was married to my mother for 63 years - he loved her limitlessly. He loved golf. He hated Trump with a passion. He could fix anything. On any given afternoon you would have found him in the back yard cutting down trees for fun. I’m completely lost.
I’ve been crying for a week but right now I can’t summon a tear.
My dad’s name was Andrew Michael Slowik jr. He was the absolute best of us.
Thank you for that moving post. I’m so sorry for your loss. It may be very small comfort, if any, but let me just say that losing parents is an almost inevitable part of aging, and has happened to many of us here. Sometimes that loss was complicated, sometimes a very simple grief, usually somewhere in between.
Pulmonary fibrosis is terrible. My father-in-law died from it a couple of years ago; something about the lack of oxygen made his BP high, and he had a stroke, after about eight years of suffering from the disease and steadily declining in capability. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
I’m so sorry for your loss, @Jack_Batty. He was obviously a special and marvelous person. We should all be so fortunate as to be able to eulogize a parent as you have.
I am glad you were there at the last.
Grief must come in its own way and time, as you surely know. May it pass gently and smoothly, so you can be left with the best memories a son can have.
My very heart-felt condolences. Lost my Dad 21 years ago. He died suddenly in his sleep and at about 4am I got “that call”.
I still miss him. He never got to meet my second wife- the genuine love of my life. He, who was in the US Army Air Corp just as it was transitioning over into the USAF and went through Basic Training in the first year that Lackland AFB was operating in that way, never got to see his grandson, my son, make it from Lackland to enlisted to Captain.
It’s an agonizing walking dream. Keep your family close, talk about him a lot. ALOT a lot. Keep him fresh, and recount him to all who will listen.
While this is a thread about his loss, could I ask you to share your top three fave stories about him?
