Dad's Death Returns Thoughts to Faith

One of the first things my Dad said to me when I arrived late to his hospital room was that he was worried he would “run out of gas” before I got there. My flight had been delayed an hour by a sick passenger.

I had about six hours with Dad until he slept. The next day, he was no longer coherent as the poisons from his failing liver and kidneys flooded his body. They moved him home in a hospital bed after he lost consciousness. On the fourth day after I came there, he died.

It’s been a week since I saw him breathe his last, though it seems only a day. I’m beginning to forget a few of the details, something that I have to admit is a blessing. Toward the end, he was in a lot of pain. I prayed for his peace.

On the one day that we had together, he said a lot of things he must have been thinking about. Already eight days after his last dialysis treatment, he’d been bed-bound for much of the time. He said, “Dying is boring.” He told me that he was glad that my Mom was provided for financially. He said he loved me.

His last meal was peaches and a few bites of his dinner from the hospital tray. I think he ate so he would have enough strength to talk later. The only thing he really wanted was sleep.

The day they brought him home, the hospice nurse explained what would happen as he died. How his pain levels would increase – requiring more medication – how to put the oxygen on him, and how his breathing would become congested and ragged as the liquid filled his lungs. There is nothing poetic about death.

The crucifixion of Jesus is told in such excruciating detail in the gospels because it really happened – the reality was bloody, horrifying and long. The Resurrection restored hope and joy by ensuring eternal life. Without faith, death is a dark finality, instead of a doorway to the light.