Letting Go

I have decided to return to my Blog because I need a release and writing is a release for me. Again, if you choose not to receive these, please let me know and I will remove your name from my mailing list.  Thanks.

My father, who is 85 years old has been in the hospital for over 3 weeks.  He went in for a bowel obstruction and the surgery became more involved and intense, per the surgeon.  He has not eaten or drank anything during the whole time, and he lays in the bed most of the time sleeping and going in and out of reality.  When he is awake, he motions for things instead of talking, and when he does talk, he doesn't make sense.  His doctor talked a long time to my brother and I today and said that he didn't have any "spark" in his eyes - that he didn't think my dad really knows what is going on.  So the doctor said that it is up to my mom and my brothers and I to decide what to do with him now.  He said a nursing home would kill him.  He suggested Hospice.

So I am in the middle of something I never wanted to be in, and that is to help decide my fathers fate.  He has a living will and this is what it says.  But I am just not ready to let him go.  I can't help it.  I cry every time I think about it.

I'm not good at letting go; of arguments, of thoughts, of fears and of people. It's just not in my character - I can be a real bulldog at times, and  can make it all the worse.  I can't let go because I don't want to live in his house that he bought some 40 years ago, without him.  I won't hear the stock market and the Military Channel on tv anymore.  I won't hear the pitter-patter of the computer keys as he types away whatever it is that he does on the computer. I won't hear his critique of my cooking at dinner every night.  I won't be able to share my paintings with him and he always critiqued those with fair criticism.  And the thing I won't hear that I can't let go of, is his telling me, "Goodnight, Sis (or Sweety) when I told him good night in the evening.

My heart hurts.  It feels like someone punched me in the stomach and it aches so bad.  My dad and I finally bonded, for the first time in my life, the past 2 years I've been down here, and now I have to let him go.

And I can't.