My
dad died on August 25, 2016. On July 27th, my sister took him to an appointment
with his pulmonologist because he was having fluid buildup in his chest and it
was making it hard for him to breathe. The doctor admitted him to the hospital
so she could do a procedure to drain the fluid off. When I got off of work, I
had a voicemail from my sister telling me he was in the hospital.
I
went to the hospital and when I got to his room he was sitting in a chair
beside the bed. The tv was off and he was just sitting there thinking. He did
that a lot. Whenever I would visit him at home he would do that. I walked over
to him and shook his hand. I squeezed it firmly and he did the same to my hand.
“That’s quite the grip you got there,” I told him.
“So
is yours,” he said and smiled.
I
was kind of joking with him because he was very frail. He had lost a lot of
weight over the last few months and he was skin and bones. He really did have a
good grip, though. After that, every time I came to visit him for the month he
was in the hospital, I would always shake his hand and say he had quite the
grip. He would always smile.
When
he was admitted, he had some other things going on besides his breathing that
needed to improve before they could do the procedure to drain fluid off his
lungs. A week after he was admitted, he had to be put on a ventilator and put
in ICU. He was never able to get off the ventilator so I never heard him speak
again. He had a note book he would use to communicate with us. Whenever I would
visit him in ICU, I would shake his hand and he still had a good grip. I would
tell him so and he would smile and point to me.
I
was at work the day he died. My older brother called me and told me Dad’s nurse
said all the family should go to the hospital. Dad wasn’t doing good and he
wrote in his note book he was going to die today.
I
left work and got to the hospital. He was still alert and aware of things. He
noticed when I walked in and I shook his hand and told him he had quite the
grip. He smiled. I stepped away from his bed and watched as other family
members talked to him. I listened to his monitors beep every now and then
because his blood pressure was low and his oxygen saturation levels were
getting too low. I knew he really was going to die that day. The nurse told us
the ventilator was maxed out and he was getting the maximum dose of blood
pressure medicine and it wasn’t helping. He died a few hours later.
I
contemplated the forty-six years I’d been privileged to have him as my dad. The
thing I thought about was the spiritual inheritance he left me. He had quite
the grip on being a Christian. He was very firm and unwavering in his walk with
God. He left my siblings and me with the same firm and unwavering walk with
God.
I’m
glad he’s in Heaven and reunited with Mom. I look forward to the day I can see
him and again and shake his hand. I’ll tell him he’s got quite the grip and I
can’t wait to see him smile.
