Walking My Father Home
Navigating hospice care with the man who raised me
What happens when a parent leaves this world? This is the question that has consumed me for the past three weeks.
I’ve always known this time would come — the end of a parent’s journey on this planet. But I didn’t imagine it would be quite so complicated. Crippling in its grief? Sure. But changing the entire fabric of the universe? The way the world looks and smells? Altering my identity? Creating a different person in place of the one I used to be?
I didn’t anticipate any of that.
When the hospice nurse asks me if I have any questions about what’s going to happen from this point on, I want to ask her: Why didn’t someone tell me how this would feel?
There are moments that I’m forgetting, and it scares me how fast they escape my memory. I want to write everything down in my journal, but I’m so tired at the end of a day. I can only manage the basics: making sure I eat meals regularly (and on some days, it takes all my strength just to do that), getting some work done (because no matter what tragedies and losses come, we still have to pay our mortgage), taking a shower (honestly, sometimes I skip it), getting dressed (perhaps in the same clothes I wore yesterday — no one will notice), and driving across town once a day to…
