Update on my Parents

It has been a year since I have had a post. My Dad passed away on July 1, 2009. We kept him out of the hospital for 5 months. If we had not placed him in Lennwood, he would probably have not been with us when 2009 started.

After the first of the year, he was having I think congestive heart failure, so he went in the hospital. Since he was at Lennwood, they took care of all that for us. He stayed for several days and then he was moved to Specialty Hospital. Which was one step up from the Lennwood. He was there for several weeks. We would take my Mom to visit him. They finally returned him to Lennwood. He was weaker and could not get around as much. They also started feeding him a diet where his food was blended. One of the things that he enjoyed was eating and now he was loosing that ability.

One funny thing that happpened during this time. I was over there before supper one day. My Dad usually had us push him to the dinning room. Well he started rolling himself out of the room. In a little while I looked out. He was by the Nurses station. He rolled himself all the way to the dinning hall. I don't think that he did that again. He started using oxygen most of the time. We were no longer able to take him out of the home. In April/May he started making trips to the hospital and then to the Speciality hospital. Each time he was getting weaker and his time at Lennwood would be a couple of weeks.

On my birthday, June 20th they took him back to the hospital When he came back to the home the last time, the home said something about starting hospice. So when they admitted him this time we called the Hospice that Mrs. Whitter's family had used. They came to talk with us and set it up. We did this for a couple of reasons. My Dad was in a great bit of discomfort/pain all the time. He was going down fast. We wanted my Mom and him to be together when he passed.
We had agreed that when he left the hospital he would go back to the home and we would start the hospice.

On Monday, June 22nd, I took Mom to visit my Dad. When we got there, Cheryl and Ryan were there along with Mary Martin. My Dad was very alert and talking. I took a video of that and it is on my Facebook page. I realized that this might be the last time that we would really get to talk with him. Since he was doing so good, I kept Mom there as long as possible. I had to take her to get something to eat since she missed supper. That was the last time that we really got to talk with him. He basically had 3 problems wrong with him. Congestive heart failure, diabetes, and his kidneys functioning. If they got one thing working good then the other things would fail.

We visited everyday, but you could tell he was going down. He did alot of complaining. He was very sick.

On June 30th, they brought him back to the home at about 10p at night. They started 24 hour Hospice care at that point. There was a nurse in the room with him all the time. I went to work on July 1st and kept on calling my sister. They didn't think that I needed to come because they were not sure how long he would last. I think I got off early and got over there as soon as I could. He was breathing very heavy and was on oxygen. I think he knew that I was there. I could see that it was very serious and knew that I could be there a long time. I took Mom to Bestbuy because I needed a charger for my IPhone. We got back and he was still hanging in there. At some point we were going to have to make a decision about feeding him. They were giving him drugs to relax him and he was hanging on.

At about 6p, I decided to go to Taco Bell to get something to eat. I had not gotten out of the driveway, when he took one final breath and was gone. He went very peacefully. I had just sat down to eat, when my brother-in-law, Alvin, called and said that he had passed away. Threw my food away and rushed back to the home. My Dad looked very peaceful and at rest. My Mom was in the room. I am not sure that she knew what happened, but she was there. My Dad was 95 and had lived a very long life.

I was not sure how I was going to handle this. The one thing that I wanted to do that night was wait until the funeral home got there and accompany my Dad until they put him in the hearse. Which I did. That is just me. I was sad and missed my Dad, but realized that he was better off.

Since that was the start of the holiday, we had to wait until Monday to have the funeral. I picked up my Mom. They had not put on the clothes that we wanted and I had them change her. When we got to Cockrell Hill Baptist Church, she didn't have her hearing aids in. This was like 930a and the service started at 10a. I had to speed back to the home to get them. I was not happy about that.

I got right back right at 10p. I am so proud of my sister, Cheryl. She had all of the family wait in the vestibule and we walked in as a family. That was every member of my extended family. The pall bearers were my 2 nephews, Robbie and Ryan, their first cousins, Mike and Kevin, their dads Jimmy and Ronnie. Cheryl had them all sit with our family. I loved that. When I had been a pallbearer for my grandmothers or my aunts and uncles we always set apart from our family.
The preacher was one of their former pastors, who was old. He did a good job. The music director when they were at Hampton Place sang a couple of songs. The last thing that we did was stood and sang, "When We All Get to Heaven." I didn't think that I could do that. But I stood and belted out that song.

I always wondered what you did when someone in your family or friends lost a loved one, especially what to say. I now realize that prayers and just being there meant so much more than what you said. I thought that this whole thing was going to be horrible and something that I wouldn't be able to do. I was surprised the comfort that I felt from my faith.

One other thing about the funeral. Since my Dad was a World War II veteran, we wanted to have a flag drapped coffin. At the cemetery there was an honor guard they played taps and folded the flag to give to my Mother.