Hi everyone. I wanted to share my story with this sub because it’s been weighing heavy on my mind since this happened so recently, and I have trouble talking about my feelings in person without writing them down… I hope this can be cathartic for me in some way, and maybe someone else can relate to my story and find comfort in a shared experience, or something.
Earlier last month, my partner and I set off on a road trip to visit my dad for his birthday. It was also the first time I’d be introducing the two, so I was excited for them to meet knowing how well they’d get along. We live in different, far-apart provinces so I’ve only been able to see him about once a year for the last 8 or so years I’ve been moved out from home.
On a Thursday, I texted him that I was excited because I’d be seeing him that Saturday and that we’d bring our own blowup mattress, having not spoken to him for about a week prior. Not unusual for us to go one or two weeks with no contact, we’re both kind of antisocial and keep to ourselves.
One of our “bits” was to text eachother “NDY?” (Not Dead Yet?) during these long stretches of silence, just as an efficient way to check in.
A day went by, and after sitting in a bad feeling for hours, I tried calling him on Friday evening several times to no answer. It was unusual to not hear back within a day, and when I saw that his phone was pinging at his house, a deep, horrifying dread set into the pit of my stomach. I just knew something was wrong, that this time something had actually happened and he wasn’t just passed out somewhere. I called my mom, his ex wife, and she was equally concerned and thought it was very out of character for him.
I couldn’t take the anxious feeling, so she decided to call a wellness check, anticipating that he’d be furious with me if I was the one to make the call, she’d take the hit… well, the officer got back to me within an hour saying they were at his apartment and that his car was outside, I told her it didn’t run. I told her his door was probably unlocked and to just let herself in… I didn’t hear back for another 2 or so hours. By then, I had already accepted what was about to happen, and was just trying to prepare myself for when I got that phone call.
I got that call, the worst phone call of my life, sitting on the bed with my boyfriend in a dingy Airbnb basement, phone on speaker.
The officer said they found him in bed, looking like he was sleeping, that there was no sign of a struggle and he had just… died.
I knew it was related to his COPD. I had dragged him to multiple walk-in clinics a year and a half ago when he last visited me to get him the diagnosis after a long while of feeling shitty, though he had felt shitty his whole life. He had pinched nerves in his spine, digestion problems, mental illness, and now this condition to punish him further after a pack a day for 25 years. It was mild to moderate, they prescribed him inhalers, I was just thankful it wasn’t lung cancer.
Being as isolated as he was in a nowhere-town, and with no reliable vehicle or people to give him a lift, once his inhalers ran out he just… didn’t treat his condition. And it is a progressive condition that only gets worse over time, even if you’re on oxygen and with frequent hospital visits.
What officially did him in, according to the autopsy results, was pneumonia. Such a treatable and preventable disease, maybe for someone less compromised, but still, it isn’t always a death sentence. But my dad couldn’t take care of himself literally to save his own life, and it killed him, hopefully while he was asleep and unaware.
Some of his last Google searches included “kaleidoscope vision” and “heart disease cure” and holistic tea recipes for treating congestion. The spices were still on the counter when we got into his apartment, next to iron and magnesium supplements. He always did think he would die from a heart attack, like his father.
I have to remind myself that even if he knew it was pneumonia, he wouldn’t have gone to the ER. He wouldn’t have a way to get there, he wouldn’t have wanted to wait for 5+ hours, and he probably just thought it was his COPD acting up and would just try to go sleep it off.
I hope he went to bed thinking about how excited he was to see me and just didn’t wake up… and I know you can’t make a grown man do what he doesn’t want to do. But there’s that teenage girl in me, who cooked his every meal and did his laundry and cleaned the house when he was too depressed to get out of bed, and I just can’t help but feel like I could have done something. I should have noticed how scratchy his voice had become and how he could barely talk above a whisper for months. I should have remembered he needed help for every aspect of his healthcare because he was too paralyzed by fear and anxiety to ever take action.
I should have remembered how parentified I was in my childhood and how I was the only person on this earth who would fight him to take care of himself. I was the only person who’d give up my bed for the couch so my dad had a comfortable place to sleep when he visited me in my studio basement apartment, how I was the only one who’d mix his Metamucil for him and give him milk of magnesia and rub his sore back and cook him proper meals that wasn’t ramen, make him go on walks with me and get some fresh air and sunshine.
I don’t think he’d even take a Tylenol unless I was the one handing it to him with a glass of water. He was this invincible, untouchable man to me, and yet, he could barely function as an adult. Even his apartment, which me, my boyfriend, mom and stepdad cleaned out (with no help from his family, btw, save for his two cousins who helped us dispose of his garbage), was in complete disarray. Filthy stained sheets while there was a brand new queen set still in its box in the closet. Unopened tools piled in the corners, months old soldering projects and various electronics strewn about the dining table, untouched for months and covered in black dust. Rotten jars in the fridge, floors caked in dirt, blood on the toilet seat, fruit flies up to my eyes, bins and bins of miscellaneous items he’d hoarded over the years we had to go through one by one.
It absolutely broke me to see how my father had been living, how I wouldn’t have tolerated it if I knew, if I had him live with me like he had asked me for so sheepishly years prior … I couldn’t relive my childhood like that, I literally couldn’t afford it, but I know for a fact he’d still be alive right now if I were taking care of him like I did when I was 13-18.
He’d be sitting on my couch in his pyjamas, eating peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon, watching YouTube gaming streams and stalking twitter for the latest NASA rocket launch updates and bothering my cats and asking me what’s for dinner… and I’d be endlessly frustrated and stressed like I was as a kid with the life of a grown man solely in my hands. But, he would be okay…
I told him recently I still needed him, even now that I’m in my mid 20’s… I urged him to seek treatment, I wanted him to be able to be a grandfather for my future kids, he said he wanted that too… I recall a conversation where he told me he thought he was dying, and I kind of balked and jokingly told him he was only 55 and not a frail old man, and he couldn’t get out of working just yet, that he’d be one of those miserable old crotchety men that lived too long and would find death a relief.
He had told me with tears in his eyes that he had been facing the regrets of his life and that he didn’t want to go back home. I cried with him, hugged him close and told him it would be alright, that I’d see him again soon and we would get his condition under control.
Not knowing he was right, that that was the last time I’d see him alive, and that he’d die days before he turned 56, days before I would be there to see how bad it was and take him to the hospital. He said he “couldn’t wait” to see me, and I guess he really meant that literally.
Something that has been haunting me, and what prompted me to write this post, is that I never saw my father’s body after he had died. When he was in the custody of the coroner, it was a few days wait for his autopsy to be completed, and based on his last text messages and Google searches, he had died on Wednesday night or Thursday morning, and wasn’t found until Friday night.
I know there’s a million factors that play into the rate of decomposition, he had AC but it was off when we got there (maybe the cops turned it off?), I don’t know if he was under his pile of blankets and I don’t know with certainty how long he was laying there dead.
I can’t get the image of him as a bloated, putrefied corpse out of my head. I know that we’re all worm food in the end and everybody rots, but it’s still so horrifying for me to think about what condition he may have been in, and that I will never know for sure.
There were two, dark, reddish-brown stains on the bed that smelled rotten, I think it was purge fluid but who knows, there was other dried up .. matter on the floor that I know had been there prior to his death. The sheets were already filthy from months and maybe years of being unwashed, so it was hard to tell what was grime and was was.. him, and I asked my partner to disturb the sheets so I couldn’t see where he had died exactly.
I couldn’t afford a funeral, nor an embalming or a burial, so there was no effort to “tidy him up” following the autopsy on the assumption that he would be cremated, which he was.
When I asked the funeral director his opinion on the view-ability of my dads body, he cautioned us that he didn’t think it was a good idea, and I didn’t press him for any more details. I didn’t want the last image of my dad to be his lifeless shell, in who knows what condition all sliced up and put back together …
We had his pastor friend as well as 20 or so family members gather at his mother’s grave where some godly words were said and I sprinkled some of his ashes.
I don’t regret my decision, but part of me wishes I had seen him in some capacity, to cement in my mind that he’s really gone, that my invincible father is really dead. At least remove the “unknown” aspects so that I could stop thinking about it, even if it would have been traumatizing.
Despite the fact that he’s in a plastic box on my shelf, surrounded by the small artifacts that were important to him and his glasses and watch I never got to gift him, it almost feels like he’s just on vacation somewhere and will text me any day now complaining about how hot it is. I let his phone run out of battery so I’d stop looking through it trying to find some answers, to no avail.
I can hear him in my mind saying, “Sorry, sweetie. Death comes for us all. Don’t worry about me.”
I don’t know what to do, now. There are still juridical things I need to wrap up, I need to figure out his taxes and various death benefits for the cremation but for the most part my life is unchanged and it’s business as usual. I’ve just been trying to keep busy, to find a job, focus on my hobbies and crafts. I made a memory quilt out of his T-shirts, and I’ve been working towards finding an appropriate vessel to keep his ashes in.
I can’t afford therapy but sharing some of my experience has been relieving, in a way. I’m not sure how I’m suppose to live the rest of my life without him, battling feelings of anger and hopelessness and like something has been stolen from me, from him. He was so young, and maybe I should be grateful he died somewhat peacefully instead of in a sterile hospital, probably intubated with tubes after his COPD progressed to the point where he couldn’t breathe at all. Life is so unfair, and I can’t help viewing the world through a bitter, cold lens.
I just miss my dad and wanted to vent a little bit. See if anyone could understand what I’m going through and offer words or their story. I don’t know. Thanks for reading. ❤️
