Read, Write, and Learn

My dad died during the Thanksgiving break.  We all knew it was coming but  I don’t think any of us was truly ready. 

I left school shortly after the buses on November 23rd and was ready to encounter the dreaded highway congestion so common on the day before the holiday when everyone needs to get “home”.  Dreaded traffic would have been a delightful replacement for the voice mail  I discovered once in the car.  It was Eileen from Beacon Hospice – letting me know they would call my house as they needed to get in touch.   I called home, spoke with my hubby and called Eileen back, but the connection was horrible and I didn’t want to be driving and trying to listen.

The bottom line was that dad was failing, couldn’t swallow, and was confined to bed.  No more meds except for morphene to ease the pain.  And with Parkinson’s and no more meds I expect there would be some pain as the muscles tightened. 

After phone calls to mom and siblings along with a discussion of when each might visit or make contact, we each settled in to finish preparations for a bountiful gathering.  I made my potato dough rolls (which get shared with neighbors and family) and the requested 2 loaves of pizza bread.  Cooking was a helpful diversion to the thinking I might otherwise be doing. Finally it was bedtime and sleep came fitfully.

Some of us visited Thursday morning before going off to our Thanksgiving feasts.  I sat there watching Dad breath – and look at me out of the corner of his left eye.  As one of the nurses said,  “He’s keeping an eye on you!”  And that he was.  His hand was dry and frail, his face gaunt, his hair long, and his breathing shallow, but he continued to hang in there – and wait.  As the saying goes, “He was a mere shell of his former self.” I doubt that he weighed even 100 lbs.  I talked to him.  I called Ellen and put the phone to his ear so she could talk and he could listen.  I held his hand and enjoyed the grip now and again and told him he still would always win any wrestling contests.  Mom and Karen also visited for a bit.  We finally wished him a peaceful day and told him we would return in the morning – but he was free to leave us.  We reminded him that he had impacted many a life during his 89+ years and no one could ask for more.  Many people were wandering around with a smile button on their lapel or in their pocket because of intersecting with his life path.

Poor baby.  You didn’t want to go out this way.  You would have prefered to die in your sleep some night when you were still otherwise healthy – but God had other plans for you.  Perhaps you were waiting to meet Miss Sarah Abigail, your first great grandchild.  Perhaps you wanted most of us to be gathering to celebrate another Thanksgiving together.  Perhaps you just needed to smile a few more times with the wonderful staff at Colonial or even with us.  None of us will ever know why death visited this Thanksgiving weekend, but it did on Saturday morning.  We had all said our goodbyes as well as introducing you to Sarah Abigail – we will tell her all our stories of you! Even Rachel snuck in Saturday morning – shared her love and thoughts – and once she left – you slipped away – without any ceremony and without bothering any of us.  Just a quiet farewell.

Dad, I will think of you each and every day and look for your presence everywhere.  I love you, dad, and I always will.

When I originally started this blog I was thinking of using it with teachers.  Then my life changed a bit and I was given a 6th grade LA class to teach so it morphed a bit to try and include them.  The class ended up using a wiki instead of a blog so the blog sat somewhat stagnant for a year. 

Now with the advent of an afterschool class I have resurrected the blog and so will try experimenting more with it.  It’s either revamp or just delete it and start again.  Since I am more of a packrat and one who does not like to waste anything (just look at my room!), I am going to rework the blog and try to be a bit more faithful with postings.

I will just have to see how this goes and if I need to start entirely from scatch.  Stay tuned to see what directions I head in.

When I went to preview what I had just entered I just discovered that the post that had been for about a year couldn’t be edited sufficiently so needed to be deleted entirely.

I also just noticed the word count at the bottom of the box where one types.  (Now part of me thinks I must have seen this feature before, but I certainly had forgotten about it by now.)  So perhaps this blog will fulfill its title:  Read, Write, and Learn as I will be writing,  reading, and learning more about blogs and how to use them best to promote something I am passionate about – books and learning!