If you look closely at the photo above, you will see that exhausted woman is holding onto a hand she has held since before she became a legal adult. She has been awake for days with naps between medication regimens, visitors, nurses, and family. No one really talks about mourning that happens long before someone fully transitions out of this world. It is hard and terrible and precious.

Mourning for years… it started with a stroke…

I will never forget the day I happened to call my mother about 20 minutes after my Dad suffered a stroke on vacation. She was on her way to the hospital following the ambulance. This is when mourning began to trickle in. They had been retired less than a year. My siblings were serving as missionaries on the other side of the planet. Mom’s world was upside down and it never really came back around. In many ways, everything changed for all of us all at once.

The prognosis

At first, dad seemed to gain back some abilities quickly and be very motivated to get better. He worked hard and I watched my mom pour herself out doing everything possible to make life at home possible and meaningful (future post). Dad would mostly be confined to a wheelchair with lots of therapies to help him walk, talk, and use his arms, but after two years, he started a noticeable decline in all areas. By the time school started fall of 2023, Dad was rarely walking because he wasn’t steady enough to do so. After a few falls transferring to the shower chair, he was only bathed with two people helping. In October, he was hospitalized in complete confusion about his location and abilities (He offered to drive mom home!). After a week in rehab, the unanimous and difficult decision was made that in his present condition mom could not care for him at home. He was moved to a long term care facility. By this point he could not rise, toilet even with assistance, or even push buttons on the remote control. Seeing your daddy like this is not for the faint of heart.

The beginning of the end… hospice

We originally decided to move to hospice care because it would financially enable mom to have additional help and bring dad home again (If your loved one is in a nursing facility of any kind, visit often, my friend). Despite the decline and the fact that Dad lost 20 lbs in about 30 days, we fully expected to have months at least.

He came home a couple of days before Christmas. He ate his last “meal” the day after Christmas (toddler size). He went from a gallon of water a day to 1 1/2 cups the next day. We all gathered and helped with all the things. From there it was the slowest, most exhausting, sad, beautiful, gross, sacred, and unending nearly three weeks of life. It is precious time I will never regret but was full of tears, wondering what was right, did we do enough, did we say enough, listen enough, did we thank everyone helping enough?????

This time of waiting for someone to die, not because you want them to go, but because you see that it’s time and they are suffering, is its own kind of torment and grief. Honestly you are also waiting for them to go because you are exhausted and have a job you need to get back to so you don’t get fired. And then you feel guilty.

And then, they are gone. From 24/7 vigil and care and concern to just putting finishing touches on a celebration of life. A numbness, a relief, and a new kind of grief begins (That’s a whole different post.).

I absolutely do not want to do this again, but I’m so grateful at the same time to have had the honor of helping care for Dad and ushering him into the arms of Jesus.

I’m so grateful that God promises to be near the broken-hearted, that those who mourn will be comforted. I found, and continue to find these promises to be true on the hardest of days.

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(It’s been just over a year since Dad entered Heaven. It’s taken that long to process enough to post what still feels like a mess of feelings and a blur of time. If you are struggling with grief or the loneliness of being a caregiver, please find a support group, counselor, or someone who has walked this road and will walk beside you.)