Oh father, tell me are you weeping
Your face it seems wet to touch
Oh, then I’m sorry father, I never thought I hurt you so much

The Weeping Song
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

While I was wrestling with the heartbreaking realization that my life’s passion was at an end, I was facing another truly heart wrenching dilemma.  My 80-year-old father, who had been slowly losing his race against Parkinson’s Disease, had reached the point that he could no longer care for himself.  Against my dad’s vehement opposition, his father had moved to Florida and died shortly thereafter, my brother Bryan moved him to Florida to live with him and his wife. I don’t know if this was the right choice, I will never know. I do know that he was incredibly angry and did not want to go. His health declined dramatically after arriving in Florida in late October. By the New Year, my brother was moving him into a Senior Care Facility. His mental faculties were deteriorating rapidly and neither my brother nor his wife was able to provide the care he needed.  Less than a week after he was moved into the facility, I received the call, “dad had a seizure, he was in the hospital, and they would be moving him to hospice in a few days.” My dad had always been clear with all five of us kids that he did not want extreme and invasive measures to keep him alive. He was in a coma. We all agreed to honor his wishes and let him peacefully slip away. 

Two days later I was flying to Florida for what I knew would be my last visit with my daddy.

When I walked into the room, my father was tucked neatly into the bed. He had lost consciousness, but I could see his face light up when he heard my voice and felt the touch of my hand. I was daddy’s little girl, the baby of the family with four brothers preceding me. He had been my protector my whole life. When we all played pile on the pig or push dad off the sofa he had been my human shield protecting me from eight flailing elbows and knees. When we had a pick-up game of touch football in the front yard he always picked me for his team, blocked for me, and sometimes even carried me across the line for the winning touchdown. He would protect me from the Wicked Witch of the West and her flying monkeys every year. He would carry me to bed and make sure I was safely tucked in.  He even protected me from myself. I decided that I must have long hair, so every night he would sit on the hearth with me after bath time, enduring my whimpers and tears as he combed the tangles out of my hair. We were both elated when we discovered “No More Tears, No More Tangles.”

Dad was an athlete his entire life. He played football in high school, for the Air Force while stationed in Okinawa, Japan during the Korean War, then at Lewis & Clark College. In his 40s he took up road running and was on the top step of the podium almost every race he entered. He was a fighter, never content to be less than his best. He was thrilled to have athletic children, and while he really wanted to have a champion footballer son, he threw every bit of support behind me and my every athletic endeavor – I don’t think he missed a single competition from grade school through high school. I’m pretty sure his proudest moment was when he cheered me on to my podium finish in the Cyclo-Cross national championship race in Portland.

But here was my bear of a dad shrinking before my very eyes. His skull was becoming more pronounced, his breathing shallower, and his veins looking like the blue highways of the America. 

I spent that first night in the hospice facility holding his hand, reading Buddhist passages (he wasn’t so thrilled about that and he let me know), telling him about my life plans, and forgiving him for all the things he had done that had wounded me deeply, things that I had not yet been able to let go and forgive. In return I asked him to forgive me for the many hurts and heartbreaks I caused him. I recounted the precious memories I had of our life together. And I cried, more tears than I ever imagined possible.

My father’s death was his final message to me – get out and enjoy the life you have while you are are still able. I felt even more empowered to pack my van and hit the road, but it was painful knowing that I could no longer share my adventures with him.