ARRRGGG

I will say, I was definitely put out at first (that's a gentle way of saying I was angry), but I didn't have a target towards which to direct my frustration.

I mean the illness, the lingering, the hope for a recovery, the hope for a miracle and ultimately the expectation that barring that miracle, we could only wait for the "Mom's in Heaven" news. Its seems unfair and makes me ask, "Why?" I know the answer, but still a part of me continues to ask.

Yet, her decline was over a long enough period of time, that her passing was not totally unexpected in a general sense. That time allowed me, and maybe others, to hope for the recovery. It allowed me to hope for a miracle. It even allowed me to adjust to the idea that the miracle I hoped for might not come to pass.

Maybe that's the reason that for me, the eternal optimist ("never, ever give up"), my response to her irreversible condition has now morphed from being "put out" into a lingering sadness. Not a sadness for her new condition. Rather, a sadness for our loss. I don't expect that will go away, though it may not be something that comes to mind quite as often and is does presently.

Of course, even in that sadness, there is hope. There is the realty that her present condition is much better than the former. There is the expectation that the joy she is experiencing now is something we will all ultimately experience. But that's a vertical expectation, and I don't need to preach to you about the vertical. Mom and Dad made sure we all have a deep and abiding understanding of our spiritual existence and relationships. Instead, I want to think about a remedy for the horizontal element of that sadness, the element with skin on it that calls for a remedy with skin.

Someone else can speak to the bonding and support we can all be to one another to accomplish the horizontal remedy, but I want to address how we can apply that remedy to Dad. Without diminishing the loss we all sense, I suspect, he lost the most. We all watched him expend a huge amount of emotional and physical energy confirming he really meant “for better or worse, in sickness and health,” and now, after enduring until "death do us part," he has finally lost his lifelong companion, his lover and his best friend. And even though he has been losing her a bit at a time over the last few years, the stark reality of Mom's irreversible condition must be daunting for him, to say the least.

For that reason, I think Dad is at a pivot point; the issue for him is whether he can (whether he will want to) devote some time to restoring his own health and re-engaging in life. If we can help him do that, I think he has many years ahead. Many years during which we can enjoy his twinkling eyes and fun-loving laughter. Many years during which we can come to understand the many things he has learned from his life time of experiences.