Categories: uncategorized
Date: 15 December 2006 22:13:37
Dad was taken by ambulance into the hospice today.
It seems unlikely that he'll be coming home again.
I just can't imagine life without him. We've been preparing ourselves for this for so long, and yet still I'm unprepared to lose him, though I know he has to go.
For fifteen minutes or so this afternoon he was fairly lucid. A tactless chaplaincy volunteer blundered in and was fairly blunt about him being there for the final stage of the journey, but Dad hadn't been fooled anyway. We cried together as I said I thought the time was coming nearer when we would have to say goodbye for a while. He said that that time would come as it was certain for everybody, but for him it was not far away. Then he said the most amazing thing. He said that he had had his chance once before and it had passed him by, but this time he had a second chance and he wasn't going to let it pass again without seizing it. He was referring to May, the time when we came closest to losing him and then the antibiotics pulled him round almost miraculously. This time they are not going to give him antibiotics.
It's in his hands now.
I wouldn't be surprised if he isn't aiming for 25th. I talked with Smudgelet about Christmas and I realised something very important as I reassured him that we would celebrate anyway, even if not in the usual way or even perhaps not on the usual day. I reminded him that the celebration of Christmas is of Jesus entering our life in order to make death something we didn't need to be frightened of. In some ways, what better time to go to be with Jesus, at the time when we celebrate Him coming to be with us.
And yet, I can't believe he may not be coming home.