My father

When I was 8 years old my parents divorced. Prior to my parents divorce I was never particularly close to my father, I was a mama's girl. When they split up I had a very up and down relationship with my father as did both of my brothers. Without getting into the nitty gritty details and whole family history I'll just say that for many reasons I chose to distance myself from my father. I haven't seen him in person in probably 6 years though that's due in large part to his moving to Florida. We stayed in contact on and off throughout the years via email. We went through periods where we would talk somewhat regularly and then he would do or say something and I would back away again.

I did not invite him to my wedding and in fact didn't tell him I was even getting married until after the fact. I explained my reasons why and he was upset but happy for me so things were okay for a short time. Then he started reverting back to his old ways so I pulled back again. I hadn't spoken to him in probably a year but right around Christmas, right before I gave birth, Kristian convinced me to contact him again. So I did. I gave him an update on my life and let him know about his grandson that was due any day.

After Hunter's birth I emailed with him a few times and gave him updates. I knew it made him happy to be back in contact with me and to hear about his new grandchild. I was hoping that maybe we could finally put things behind us and slowly get to a better place. I was cautious but optimistic.

My father passed away this past Saturday, February 25th. It wasn't a surprise to us. He had been in the hospital for close to a month due to a large ulcer that was left untreated and perforated his stomach. He had surgery and even though he was in bad shape we had hoped he would be able to recover. The doctors told us last week that he had taken a turn for the worse and there was really nothing left that they could do. He had never been in very good health and his body just wasn't able to recover from this. We made the decision to have him moved to hospice care however he ended up passing on Saturday before they could move him.

After his surgery my brother had flown down to FL to be with him in the hospital. I couldn't go because I didn't feel comfortable leaving Hunter when he was only a month old, especially since I'm still breastfeeding and he was far too young to go with me. However, my brother would put me on speaker phone so that I could talk to my dad. He was on a ventilator so he couldn't talk back but my brother said he could hear me and was responsive when he asked my dad if he understood. He was also able to hear Hunter cry.

The whole thing is very surreal. Even though I wasn't close to my father and we've had a difficult relationship I'm still of course very sad about his death. After all, he is my father and if it weren't for him I wouldn't be here. I'm sad that we didn't have time to fully repair our relationship. I'm sad that we never had that super close father/daughter relationship that I've been envious of from my friends. But I am happy that I had been back in touch with him and that he knew about his grandson before he died. I know that brought him great joy and that gives me comfort. I just hope that he's now finally at peace.