If you are new to this newsletter, what follows is a break from what I usually write, because my life has broken apart over the past few weeks.
For everyone else; an explanation:
On May 22, my parents left their home in Brooklyn to set off on a vacation in Toronto. They stopped for one night in Buffalo — a city where we used to live but haven’t in years. That night, my dad went into cardiac arrest while watching TV with my mom.
For several weeks, doctors worked hard to bring him back, and at certain moments I felt sure that they would. But eventually it became clear that the essential spark that made my dad my dad was gone, never to be recovered.
Yesterday my family gathered together to spend my dad’s final hours with him. We sang to him and played him music and held him, and being there for his final breaths was beautiful in a way that I never understood that death could be.
I love my dad very much, and I am grateful for the beautiful and caring relationship we had. I am lucky to be able to say that I have no regrets about my relationship with him, that I only wish it could have gone on forever.
But nothing can, can it.
I’ll be taking a week off to process my feelings and my grief and begin to mourn. See you on the other side.
I am so sorry for your loss
you don’t owe us an explanation, but thank you for sharing this. I’m sorry to hear about your dad, and glad you had a good relationship with him. May his memory be a blessing.