Eulogies — Key to Writing and Giving Dad’s Without Falling Apart

A Father’s Day Nod to Dad from his Baby Girl

Dad had dementia for about the last three years of his life. We saw it gradually coming on, but like a train wreck, once the disease has started ravaging the brain the damage is done. There’s nothing modern medicine can do to stop the disease. It builds momentum like a runaway train and doesn’t stop until it’s destroyed everything in its path — including the life of its host.

Over the last several years of Dad’s life, he had four minor heart attacks. If you or a loved one has ever experienced cardiac arrest, you know what a terrifying experience it is. Especially when it’s compounded by other health issues. In Dad’s case it was compounded by emphysema, COPD, diabetes, and the most dreadful of all— dementia.

We Thought We Needed An Obituary

It was during Dad’s recovery of the last heart attack when I started writing the eulogy — though I hadn’t realized it.

The thought initially came when my two older sisters and I talked about the possible need for an obituary. It was a painful moment of reckoning. Being the writer in the family, I thought it only right that I step up and volunteer to write it.