The Unknown Farewell

On this day last year, my father passed away.

He’d been having a rough few weeks, and after finding out his prognosis was even worse than we feared, a decision was made to remove his life support in accordance with his advance health directives.

I stayed up late that night waiting for “the call”.

Nothing.

About 2 am, I gave up and got a few hours sleep.

Our second son had been born only 10 days previously, so he was up every few hours as newborns are.

I got up at 6am with the baby and checked my phone.

Still nothing.

So, I called the nurse at the hospital. She was very nice and gracious.

She told me they had just turned my father and made him comfortable.

Not knowing what else to say, I told her thank you for all you do for people, not just my dad.

I didn’t think about it until later, but after that, she said “Hold on, something is happening.”

Figuring she had nurse stuff to take care of, I said “Okay, thanks” and said goodbye.

As it turned out, I didn’t realize who I was really saying goodbye to.

Not even 5 minutes later my brother called to say Dad was gone.

We never know how much time we have.

Cherish every minute you have doing what you love with those you love.