Be there in 20

I'll take a stab at it.

Dad, RG, died last week. If there is any saving grace to it, he went fast. Unlike Mom who was in and out of the hospital, diagnosed with stomach cancer, recovered after major surgery, relapsed, re-entered and eventually succumbed after several long and painful months, Dad had the stroke sometime in the night, one week ago. By the time we air lifted him to Harborview in Seattle the damage has been done. He was gone in less than 48 hours.

I say this is saving grace not so much because of the incredible stress a passing family member, and in this case patriarch, puts upon the surviving family, but more because the whole circumstance is filled with suffering. Starting with the poor soul hooked up to life support all the way through to those who, informed on impossibly short time frames, simply could not drop all responsibilities and fly out for last rites and final good-byes. And everyone in between. It might have been toughest of all to stand bed-side and watch a person you have known and loved your entire life, die. I am still not sure of who held the better end of that sorry stick.

I will say that RG, never the fence sitter, always firmly on one side of the road, went out with typical flair and drama. As we stood, RNs in attendance, I holding his right hand warm with endema, dear old Dad took his last breath, and then preformed a flawless Lazarus sign. If you are not familiar with this neuromuscular phenomena, here is some info. It is comparatively rare, and still not 100% understood. It is a touch unsettling. And completely weird. I would expect nothing less from RG.

It has been a week. Brothers and sisters have returned home and started back to their normal lives. Most of the paperwork has been done and the scientific research folks have transported the body. After their forensics and autopsy we will receive ashes from the cremation. I will box a small amount for RG's six kids the same way that we did with Mom.

And that will be the end of it.

But it really won't be. I have my memories, recollections, biases and opinions. There is irony as well as paradox. For all his failures and weakness', Dad had a heart of solid gold. I miss him already. We had some good times. Our relationship goes all the way back to 1952. Now he is gone and I wish so much that I could have done more.

Maybe we all feel that way when the trauma of death takes the stage, when something we might have taken for granted is swept away, when someone we thought would be here longer is suddenly missing in action. I don't know.

What I do know is that all those things that I have always wanted to do….. Now need doing.

Life is short. Dad was 85.

I'll be there in 20. No time to lose.

There is the final lesson I learned from RG.

Thanks Boss.