When a Loved One Passes

My father, Dr. Jack M. Morton, passed away on May 29, 2026 at the age of 94. He had advanced prostate cancer which traveled to his spine and eventually to his brain. He was able to get around well until about the last two weeks of his life.

Right after my father’s caregiver had bathed him on the morning the 29th, he was lying on his back looking up toward the ceiling. He gasped, reached up, and looked like he’d seen something (or someone). He smiled a little and she asked “Jack, are you seeing heaven?” And he said “yeah.”

About an hour later (at 12:24 pm EDT) my father passed from this world and was reunited with my mother, Betty Morton, who passed in 2017.

I was sitting beside my sleeping father texting updates on his condition to family and friends and listening to him breathe. Then the breathing just stopped. No big gasp. Just breathing one moment and not the next. Official time of death was declared at 1:18 pm EDT after his nurse was able to double back from her earlier visit.

The Sunday before he passed, my father seemed to be straddling worlds. He was surrounded by loved ones who had passed on. He saw my mother, asked where she’d gone, and then said, “Oh well, I’ll go get her soon.” He talked about seeing his deceased younger brother, his brother-in-law, his father, and his best friend. At times he seemed to be receiving his marching orders for the next world. He asked, “When do I get to work?”

The last week was difficult, but also incredibly sacred. A day or two after my father passed, I woke up with the lyrics of a song floating through my head that encapsulates what I witnessed and felt in the last week of his life.

If you’ve ever lost a loved one, I hope you take comfort in knowing “they are not dead, they are not gone. They’re just in another room.”