My mother has Dementia, similar to Alzheimer’s Disease, Dementia is kind of an umbrella for a memory diseases of old age.  I’d guess it started about nine years ago.

When my dad passed in August of 1999, I remember how hard it was.  I remember thinking… “I had no idea that it would be this hard”.  In our church there is something called a Father’s Blessing.  I was camping in early July of 1999.  One day while camping, I had this urgent feeling… “Have your dad give you a Father’s Blessing”.  The feeling was so strong and urgent that I left the camp ground and drove to the little store down the street.  I phoned my mother, Twyla, and told her about my strange and urgent feeling.  She said, “Dad is doing just fine darling.  Don’t worry, everything is fine”.

I drove back to camp.  Even though the feeling didn’t go away, I finished my camping trip.  I still couldn’t shake the feeling that came and went to have a Father’s blessing.  I even saw my dad, he was fine and we were all busy.  I told myself dad is fine.  I will have time.  I will have him give me a blessing.  But, there’s time.

If my memory is correct, July 19th of 1999 was a Monday.  I flip through the calendar of my computer.  My memory is correct.  It is the last day that I saw my father alive.  It was my mother’s birthday.  Most of our family was there, at our parents house, in the back yard.  My parents had a 19 foot long shed in there back yard in South Weber, Utah.  It was a large back yard about a half acre.  They had a large deck off the sliding glass door that came out of their kitchen.  The deck my ex-husband had made with my dad.

We were gathered there to paint the shed.  My mother, Twyla, had said that was all she wanted for her birthday was to have the shed painted.  So, my father had gathered his family together and we all painted the shed.  What a fun memory.  My brother’s and their families and my sister and her family and my daughters and myself.  My father, Ted, in his chair on the deck observing.  My dad, now 72, had been riddled with arthritis for much of his life.  He had kidney problems that were discover at the age of 45 and I remember the day he came home from the doctor and we were told that the doctors had said that my father only has two more years left to live.  They had discovered that one of his kidneys had been dead since birth and that the second kidney was only functioning at about 25% of what is should be.   Long story short (cliche), my parents delved into health food and herbs and my father’s kidney issues were never what took his life.

Back to the day we were all painting the shed in my parents back yard.  I kept noticing my father sitting on the deck.  He was always a calm man, content to listen to the grandchildren or myself.  Today, I noticed he seemed especially pensive… He was watching us intently.  He was CONTENT!

Two days later my mother called us.  Dad was acting strange in his chair and she immediately headed to the Veteran’s Hospital in Salt Lake City.  My father went into a coma and was placed on life support.  Everyday I made the hour drive to Salt Lake City to see my father and support my mother.  Everyday the same.  He was hooked up to the machines that kept him alive.  No words.  I did remember the time that my father told my mother and I that he did not want to be kept alive with life support.  But, now that wasn’t my decision it was his dear wife’s.  One day while in his room, just my mother and me looking at him, it seemed he looked at us.  I thought he was mad at us for keeping him this way.  My mom glanced quickly my way.  Later she told me, “It was almost like he was mad at us”.  The same thing I had thought.

A couple of my siblings did not think my father was dying.  A couple of us did.  Day after day we continued to pray and wait. Twelve days passed by.  The family decided it was time to have a 24 hour fast.  Fasting is not one of my strengths.  I believe I can name, hmmm, probably 3 times in my entire life that I have completed a 24 hour fast and I’m thankful that this is one of them.  Day 13 is the first time that my mother and all of her children were at the VA Hospital at the same time.  We were there to end our fast and pray for my father.  My brother Randy, was giving the blessing to my father.  Randy happened to be one of the siblings that believed my dad was going to pull out of this coma.  He placed his hands on my fathers head as we all bowed our heads and closed our eyes.  The blessing began, but the word Randy so desired to say would not come.  Quiet, and then through tears my brother blessed that we would be able to let my father go in peace.

We conveyed in the waiting room.  It was one of those happy funeral type gatherings.  My father was in a coma in the other room.  But, sweet feelings of love and friendship between a mother and her children were all around.  Then the door opened.  A man in scrubs stood there.  The pillow that was in my mother’s lap flew through the room as she said, “Don’t you dare say it!  Don’t you dare!”

My father was released from his earthly cares as his family prayed for his best interests and displayed the unity needed to let him leave this earth.

Night after night I cried.  A single mother of four girls, he was my go to guy for that taken care of feeling we usually get from a loving spouse.  He was my protector and my person that looked over myself and the four little girls in my charge.  I longed to talk to him again just once.  I never forgave myself for not getting that Father’s Blessing that my Heavenly Father wanted me to have, to comfort me in the loss of my earthly Father.

This story started out as Twyla and ended up about her other half… Ted.

I love you Father!

–  Your String Bean