It was hell to watch my larger-than-life Dad wither away into a frail shell of the man he used to be.
My dad was dying, and I was helpless to stop the inevitable.
A dying parent is excruciating. I would get physically ill as I listened to my dad talk about the side effects from his drain bags, all of his medications, the amount of pain you knew he was in, his exhaustion and sometimes nausea, and his daily litany of health issues from the issues with his liver that was slowly deteriorating. I’d lay awake at night and wonder if tomorrow was the day his health would go from bad to worse. Worrying that everytime the phone would ring, that it was another hospital visit. Another fever. Another round of IV antibiotics. Another surgery to replace his drain bags. Another blood culture to tell is exactly what bacteria had adhered to his organs.
When your parent is dying, you feel like you die inside right alongside them.
A dying parent is exhausting. I forced myself to try to focus on the rigors of raising Bailey and Khristian, running a household, being a wife, friend, daughter, coach, teacher…..all while trying to keep track of what doctors my Dad was seeing that day and remembering to call Gina for the rundown of the latest tests and blood work. Waiting on her texts. Her phone calls. Asking daily what his Bellirubin level was. His sugar level. Knowing what was bad. What was good. And what was “good for him.” I longed for the days when our lives didn’t center around the ups and downs of his illness, when I could selfishly call my dad just to tell him about a professional achievement or about something cute Bailey said. Add in COVID and that’s a whole other issue of feeling the tug of not knowing if you should bring Bailey by to see him for fear of bringing something to his weakened immune system. Being torn because you want to see your Dad but you are also terrified of giving him a cold that would ultimately put him in the hospital.
A dying parent means never knowing what the day will bring.
A dying parent makes you realize you are selfish. You find yourself whispering, “Please let him make it to Easter” because you want your kids to get one more holiday with their beloved grandfather. YOU want one more holiday with your hero. As the months go on and you see things getting worse….you will secretly will him to hold on for one more day. One more week. One more month.
You find yourself holding onto him a little bit longer when he has to go to the hospital yet again….because you aren’t sure if he will make it home. Videoing him telling Bailey he loves her, just in case it’s the last time. You find yourself irrationally angry because this Illness will eventually steal your hero and you can’t bear the thought of your children not getting to have their PawPaw around when they are adults. Angry and sad at the moments he will have to miss.
Having a dying parent means you have to forgive yourself for feeling selfish.
A dying parent means it’s next to impossible to do “normal” things like girls’ night out or even anything fun…..without the urge to scream raging under your skin. My dad was dying. How was I expected to sip cocktails and discuss The Bachelor like nothing was wrong? How was I supposed to go on living when his life was being cut short prematurely?
Having a dying parent means you have to push through the guilt of feeling joy and happiness because you know that your parent expects nothing less.
A dying parent means there’s no rule book. There’s no play-by-play list that you can refer to on the days when the panic and anger are so raw that you think you might actually lose your mind. And while your friends do their best to sympathize with you, no one understands the sheer desperation that always threatens to bubble over in the middle of the snack aisle at the grocery store. Buying his chocolate milk because you know that’s the only thing he can stomach.or his powdered doughnuts. Lemon drops because that’s the only thing he can taste. Calling Gina and asking how he is only to find out he has hardly eaten….so you make a special trip through Hardees to grab his beloved biscuits and gravy in hopes that he will take a few bites before sitting the fork down in disgust because he can’t taste anything. A dying parent means that you will be pushed to your limits, and you will find strength you didn’t know you possessed.
A dying parent means facing your own mortality with new eyes. In the final months of my Daddys illness, I’d often look at my children and worry that my death would hurt them in the same way. I worried that the fear and terror I felt in those last few months would be their journey someday when their Dad and I will face our own health issues. I wondered if I could be strong for them, like my Dad was for me, and I prayed that I could face death with the grace my dad showed near the end.
A dying parent means realizing that you, too, will someday be the dying parent.

A dying parent means your friends will say the wrong things and you will forgive them because they mean well. You will smile and nod when people offer condolences and you will gratefully accept fried chicken and sandwich plates that you will eat for a month.
A dying parent means you will find yourself looking at your Dads hands and trying to memorize how they look when he’s holding a cup of coffee. It means breathing in his scent and praying that you’ll always remember that your head fit perfectly on his shoulder when he enveloped you in a bear hug. It means memorizing the wrinkles in his face when he smiled because his eyes absolutely lit up.
A dying parent means realizing that the earthly body you’ve loved fiercely will soon be one with the earth. Or in his case, the ocean.
A dying parent will teach you that there’s nothing a parent won’t do to make it easier for their child in the end. You will hear your sick parent say, “I’m okay.” …..and even though you aren’t, you’ll let go of the hand that you’ve held since you were small.

When your parent finally finds peace, you realize that your parent is still teaching you about life.
Only now, you are learning about life without your dying parent.
And it’s a new kind of hell.
Everyone’s life has gone back to normal.
You’re still finding out what your new normal is.
With all of this said, I wouldn’t change a thing about the last 3 years. I felt it was an honor to help take care of my Daddy. No matter how small it was. Some days I felt like I wasn’t doing enough and some days I felt like I was being over bearing. Some days I just wanted to sit with him and some days I hated seeing how sick he was….and I’d cry all the way home. On the good days, I would smile and stay a little while longer….enjoying the good conversation. Letting him talk to me about race cars and storage wars.
He held my hand in my weakest times….and I got to hold his in his weakest times.
I laid beside him in the bed the day before he died….and I held his hands. He was pretty much unresponsive.
But I held his hand.
Running his hand with my thumb.
Giving him the comfort he needed in that moment.
The day he died, I climbed up on the bed beside him and I laid my head on his chest hoping to hear his heartbeat.
I wanted so badly to feel the rise and fall of his chest.
I wanted to feel his arms come up behind me and squeeze me in a hug.
I wanted to hear him whisper one more time that he loved me.
I wanted my daddy here.
In the 3 years that lead up to this moment,
I got moments no one else got.
I got conversations.
I got smiles.
I got the trashy tv shows.
The race car shows.
The das of just sitting with him for hours.
No words.
Just sitting and enjoying the moment.
I got walks.
Car rides.
Starbucks trips.
Beach trips.
Most of all, I got his love.
My Daddy taught me everything I needed to know in life….except how to live without him.
