After a year of enduring a multitude of procedures, chemo, and radiation for his bladder cancer, Dad was sent home from the hospital with hospice support after his ureters became blocked in the end. Doctors estimated he had a week as his kidneys backed up, but he had decided, with a great deal of discussion and forethought, that if this happened, he did not want any more surgeries or the rest of his time to be spent in a nursing home. His call.
He had been our mom’s caregiver for several years as her Alzheimer’s progressed, and she really didn’t process what all was happening, but she still had smiles for all her children who came to spend some final time with Dad. He appreciated the visit from his next younger brother at the hospital to say final goodbyes, and you could see that there was peace between them, washing away whatever it was that had caused a rift in their family for decades. He was extremely relaxed and thankful, almost blissful, when I shaved him at the hospital and he could just enjoy the warm washcloth on his face afterward. Funny how it’s the simplest things that can produce joy in these times.
Hospice helped set up a hospital-type bed in their living room, and we settled in with the fire crackling, and Dad was able to switch easily from family memories in one direction and gazing out on the pond they had come to enjoy so much in their retirement years. The days went by quickly together, catching up with siblings, preparing meals together, with Dad having less and less interest in food as the days went by. In the final hours, we sang songs together, held his hand, told him one more time about our favorite memories together and how much we loved him. He came from that greatest generation, the generation that grew up immersed in the Depression, graduating high school only to go straight into military service, then raising a family through the turbulent ’60’s, and his case, working to help put a man on the moon. He had survived two decades of farming, and kept learning new skills his entire life – sewing and becoming a paramedic were two he added during retirement.
The day he would pass away, there had been a steady, beautiful snowfall, building up over a foot of new snow – the thick, fluffy snow that hangs and piles up on every spruce bough and twig. His breathing continued to become more labored, and even the morphine seemed unable to keep him comfortable. Time seems to stand still when your emotions are wrapped up this deeply, but the first strange element was that just as Dad’s breathing wavered, then restarted, for just a minute or two, the power flickered on and off, on and off, then went completely off. We had the light of the fire still, and we lit candles quickly. Everyone had their last chance to give Dad a kiss, a hug, a hand squeeze, a whispered goodbye and “I love you, Dad.” As we heard his last breath, a rich, deep voice behind me, with love and a feeling of deepest admiration, said simply, “A mighty oak has fallen.” It took a moment to sink in, but I turned to my siblings and asked through my tears, “Who just said that? Who said that?” “Said what?” they asked. “Said that ‘A mighty oak has fallen’,” I said. “That was so beautiful.” My sister had heard the exact same thing, and sensed it with the same tone. We remain convinced that it was Dad’s younger brother Darell’s voice, the same Darell whom Dad had felt such great loss for since he died in an Air Force training accident in 1955. That he always felt was the most senseless loss of potential. A classmate of our mom’s, Darell was the epitome of everything fun and good that could be blessed upon a person. Leadership, athleticism, a warm smile and loved by everyone who ever had the good fortune to meet him. We sang Amazing Grace together in the candlelight.
A couple hours earlier, my wife and our daughter had gone back to the little motel up the road where we were staying, and I had to go tell her that Dad had passed. As I drove out the driveway into the absolute darkness, huge snowflakes still softly falling in my headlights, I noticed that up and down the highway as I drove, no other homes were without power, as they had lights on in the yards, and the power was on at the motel. I recounted Dad’s final moments with them, and they quickly got dressed and jumped in the car with me. By the time we got back to the house, the power had come back on, just as mysteriously as it had gone off earlier.
Over the next few hours, I finished calling the siblings who weren’t there. Fernando (one of our adopted siblings) shared that not long after he had come to the farm and our family, Dad had explained that the boys were now in their forever family, that there would be no more moves or rejections for them. Dad had then given him a hug. As Fernando explained through his tears, he said that he had stood there and cried like a baby while Dad hugged him, and he told Dad that he could not remember when the last time was that he had been hugged. By anyone. He was 16.
The next morning, Fernando texted me and shared that he kept a poem and picture of an oak tree above his own two boys’ beds:
The strongest oak of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun.
It’s the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun.
He told me how that poem always reminded him of Dad, sheltering him, Adriano and Roberto as new arrivals, despite the winds that blew, and encouraging them to face the winds of life head-on. So I called him and shared the events of the night before, this time including the “Mighty Oak” part.
Fast forward
In the spring of 2019 we came together with extended family to inter the ashes of our parents in a cemetery in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, Mom’s hometown. Two of our mother’s classmates attended. After talking with one of them for a while, the conversation turned to things serious and spiritual, so I decided to share the story above, about Dad’s final night. The classmate shared with me the following sincere advice: “You were visited. Don’t ever doubt it.“
A moment of Grace.
I appreciate angels helping us on so many days. At the end of a trip up north, I goofed up and set my wallet and iPhone on the tonneau cover on the truck box, right behind the cab, “just for a second” as I loaded up the cab of the truck. Right. Just for a second. So we took off for home, and after a few minutes driving, my wife suddenly asked “Is that your phone ringing?” I reached around in the bins and the console and gasped, “Oh my gosh, I don’t have my phone, or my wallet!” And then I remembered putting them behind the cab, so I pulled slowly to the side of the road and went back to see if they were still there. Nope, gone. So I turned around, trailer and all, and we started driving back the way we came – we’d only gone a few miles, but we were on a busy state highway. Driving slowly, looking along the shoulder and in the road, after 3/4 of a mile I saw my wallet and jumped out. It was already emptied of credit cards and cash, and I found myself thinking, “Could someone already have grabbed it and emptied it?” and then I saw a $20 bill, and then a single, and then all my business receipts, then a credit card, then another. Spread over several hundred yards in the ditch. Then Ellen found more cash and credit cards on the other side of the road. We found every piece of paper and plastic spread over 1/4 of a mile on both sides of the road. No phone, though, so we got in and kept driving, ever so slowly, with Ellen calling my phone number with her phone, windows rolled down. I heard my ring tone and saw my phone sitting on the far shoulder. Otter case dinged a little, but otherwise perfect after doing a flying double twist, triple somersault at highway speed.