RIP my dad

rhino said:
I was fortunate enough to spend his last night with him and was there when he passed. It was peaceful and kind of beautiful all things considered. Don’t really need any mojo or anything, but I will tell all you old fuckers keep moving around. Vascular dementia wasn’t a fun way to go out.
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Condolences to you and your family. Vascular dementia certainly isn't a great diagnosis. We were lucky with my Dad, though he had Vascular dementia for him it was a very slow degradation and he managed to get to 91 and was still somewhat with it until about 90, a good run for most anyways. It can be much worse I know. As I was thousands of miles away most of the time I always made sure to tell him I loved him when I saw him since I never knew if that visit would be the last. Actually a good idea no matter what age or health but life gets in the way and we often forget how fleeting it can be.
 
nuke_diver said:
Condolences to you and your family. Vascular dementia certainly isn't a great diagnosis. We were lucky with my Dad, though he had Vascular dementia for him it was a very slow degradation and he managed to get to 91 and was still somewhat with it until about 90, a good run for most anyways. It can be much worse I know. As I was thousands of miles away most of the time I always made sure to tell him I loved him when I saw him since I never knew if that visit would be the last. Actually a good idea no matter what age or health but life gets in the way and we often forget how fleeting it can be.
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Thank you. I was fortunate to be able to see him about once a week for the last 6 months or so. There were some times where I’m pretty sure he didn’t recognize me, but either my mom would say who I was without calling attention to the fact that he didn’t recognize me or I would make a stupid joke about being his favorite kid Ryan. Towards the end he just slept a lot and never really got bitter or angry like we all expected. We got lucky with that too I suppose.
 
I'm sorry for his passing, but I'm glad you got to spend time with him those last few hours. That's important inside us, deep in the soul.
 
rhino said:
Thank you. I was fortunate to be able to see him about once a week for the last 6 months or so. There were some times where I’m pretty sure he didn’t recognize me, but either my mom would say who I was without calling attention to the fact that he didn’t recognize me or I would make a stupid joke about being his favorite kid Ryan. Towards the end he just slept a lot and never really got bitter or angry like we all expected. We got lucky with that too I suppose.
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I imagine that you know how lucky that is. So many dementia patients are angry, bitter or abusive. We were lucky too. One time when I was visiting another patient was going off on the nurse. She walked passed us sitting with Dad, gave him a hug looked at me and said "We love him". In spite of what he lost he never lost his ability to be nice to people, that was a gift and seems like you received it too.
 
Condolences. No matter how expected or unexpected, losing a parent is hard. I had rocky relationships with both of mine, but I still miss them. Thankfully the memories live on, and I embrace the pleasant ones.
 
Gary Blanchard said:
Condolences. No matter how expected or unexpected, losing a parent is hard. I had rocky relationships with both of mine, but I still miss them. Thankfully the memories live on, and I embrace the pleasant ones.
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A lot of wisdom there. Thank you.

One of my sisters had a harder go with him than I did, step vs bio and all that. As I explained it to her, relationships are complicated because people are complicated. His and mine was no different. Specifically as I became an adult and realized how her experience with him was so much different than mine. As he approached death, I intentionally left the complicated parts out, and kept the relationship focused on the simple part. I never had to doubt if he loved and made sure he knew I felt that.

My sister’s and dad’s relationship wasn’t fair to her… or him either, but sadly there was no fixing that. To her credit, she still helped out until the end, mainly to support my mom. She’s had a harder time with his passing than I have. There were somethings I know she wanted to confront but didnt, because in his diminished mental capacity he wouldn’t have been able to follow what she was saying and she didn’t think it would’ve been fair to him or satisfactory for her.
 
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