facing the future

I have said many times that I am a "wordy" person.
It is how I live and breath.  It is how I express
joy, pain, sadness, and well, life, really.
 
I say in a 6 page text (who sends 6 page texts? me.)
what others say in complete acronyms and one
incomplete sentence, and well, one text!

My children have complained that oft times my
blog is FAR too wordy and not enough on the picture
side of things. 

If that's what they are looking for...well, this is
the wrong blog.  I blog real life and sometimes
real life is messy, and sad and ugly.

I have replied...it is MY blog and so I'll do
what I darn well please.

This one, well, it's been a hard one for me to write.

*grandma & grandpa ladanye June 2010*

Last week my ailing father went back to visit
his cardiologist.  He has been declining in
health dramatically over the past 6 months.
And the picture has been looking
bleak.  He has been getting weaker, instead
of stronger.  The burden he carries of
physical ailments is so very heavy.  He has
aged years, in a matter of months.

He is tired.  Very, very tired.


The news he received was not good, although not
unexpected.  His heart is beating at 20% of
capacity.  Things look bad. Really bad.  His Dr.
informed him that he would not last to years
end.

How do you ingest news like that?  How do you
move forward every day knowing that you are
taking one step closer to a certain demise.

The end.  The finale.

Obviously the Dr. is not "God", in the sense
of being "all knowing" or "all seeing", but he
is making a call based on certain medical
evidence.  Putting facts together.  Adding
up 2 + 2.  The sum of the equation is
not a pretty one.  No matter how you look at
it. 

How do you find peace with the fact that your
time on this earth is coming to a close?  What
do you do with the end of your days?

It led ME to question what I wanted do with the
end of HIS time.  What kind of daughter would
I want to be to him as he passes from
this life to the next.  What memories of these
numbered days do I want to remain with me
when he is no longer here.

Some say "he's been sick." (who cares? he's
still my dad)

Some say "he's old, he's lived a long life."
(again, i say who cares?  he's still my dad)

None of that makes it any easier to KNOW
that he will go.  That his time has a limit now.

My relationship with my father has not always been
perfect.  Sometimes it has been painful and hard.
Sometimes I have wanted to scream and cry
and yell.  And sometimes, I have.  But he
is my father and amidst the hard times there
have been many layers of good times mixed
in with everything else.

What I have decided in the hours since swallowing
hard and  digesting this news is that NOW,
this time we have left, is about making peace. 

For him.  For me.

For him, finding peace with, and for,
the life he has lived.
 
For me, finding peace with, and for, the days
and minutes and hours we have left together.

In the end, that is all we get to take with us
as we move on.  

Time, and memories.

The rest of it, ALL the rest of it, stays here.

Behind.

Isn't it amazing when you really
think about it?  How we spend our whole lives
trying to accumulate, things, when in the end
we get to bring NONE of those "things" with us.

Certainly the coming of death, the rapping
of its ugly knuckles upon our door,  puts all
of that into perspective, doesn't it?
And so I stand here now, facing the future,
watching him face his future.

Each day we will take a step toward the
inevitable.  I want to be there with him
as he takes those steps. 

Together.