Bittersweet End of Life Journey

This is a bittersweet time for us. Our caregiving for my elderly father is coming to a close. His decline has accelerated, and medical staff feel his transition is imminent. In his brief waking hours, he seems to drift from the other dimension to this one.

He pops back in and asks, “Where did Donald go?” (his deceased brother). “Where did Bob go?” (my mother’s deceased brother). “Where did Hayden go?” (his deceased best friend). Last night he told my sister about having just spent a few hours with his father working on Mowbray Mountain.

The veil is thin … paper thin…

Grief is a weird thing when you’ve watched someone slowly decline over the course of years. In many ways, the Daddy who reared me — my wise, loving mentor — hasn’t been with us in years. David has never really known him.

I’ve grieved that man already. Now I’m grieving the man he became. The mind and the heart do tricky things. Because I know he’s suffered long enough and that he’s going to a better place, part of me wants the suffering to end. So many nights I’ve prayed, “I can’t do this. Please let it end. Please let him just sweetly pass in his sleep.”

Yet as the final moments draw near, I suddenly realize there is absolutely nothing that can prepare you for that final goodbye. It looms ahead as both enemy and friend.

As my father has progressed through his illness, old memories of the Daddy who taught me to read, do math, and play basketball flood back. This man, who always, always made me feel so safe, is teaching me that it’s safe to let go.

The heartache is so deep that even my efforts to stay cerebral and observe the dying process with fascination (or to stay in caregiving service mode) are no longer effective. I feel an anguish, down deep, buried beneath a mountain of responsibilities and caregiving years, beginning to bubble up and demand attention.

Music has been my greatest therapy. I write songs about what he meant to me as a child. Wherever he is, my Mama is too, in that little town of Daisy, Tennessee, where I grew up. Memories of the best childhood anyone could ask for come flooding back in song.

Music says and feels more than I know how to express in any other way. I don’t write these songs for anyone else. I write them for me … to help me remember, to help me process. It’s easy to forget, as you care for the elderly, that he’s the same person you once knew.

As I care for the old man, I honor the man who had more impact on me than anyone else on this earth. The greatest teacher in my life is tutoring me on life and death, dignity and grace, and letting go.

And something tells me that on the other side of this, I will never be the same…

Here are a couple songs I wrote to process my emotions. You might enjoy them if you’ve walked the caregiving journey or grew up in a small Southern town or want to know what it was like to be loved and raised by one of the best fathers on this planet.