My father and Terry Pratchett

[lolmac]

No, my father never met Sir Terry Pratchett.  He probably never read any of his books, although he would have loved them -- especially the later, snarkier, more Twain-esque* ones.  Funnily enough, my father actually looked a little like Terry Pratchett, although he didn't wear a hat.

Comments

[thothmes]

I simply don't understand how that is a sick way of thinking about it. You were seeing it the way he would have and were understanding that all was as close to how he would have wanted it as possible under the circumstances. People need to be cherished, honored, and remembered for who they are. There are people I've known that were certain that they would be going to be with God, an eternity of adoration and bliss. I try hard for them to think of them that way, although I myself have always thought that Dante's Inferno was the interesting section, his Paradiso the dull one, and neither to be what we will get. I have known others who feel that they were here before and will be here again, that it is all just continual skin shedding. My family tends to the and then you die and there is nothing, because you have ceased to exist theory. The idea is to honor them in the way they would wish, and cherish the time you have together.

How very rude to say "Absorbing loss and reflecting on it. Ur doin' it rong!"

My husband's maternal grandfather and his sister, his own mother and two of the aforementioned sister of the grandfather's kids (his mother's cousins) all have dementia or died of Alzheimer's, so I'm... concerned. Thank you and please thank your siblings for your contributions. Science works, and it depends on data.

[lolmac]

As I recall, they were already squicked at the thought of Dad's brain being donated, and they didn't understand how I could joke about the whole thing (clearly, the comment about being reincarnated as research data was a joke). Then, too, with Alzheimer's little known and less understood, it wasn't a comfy subject. I was also using the d-word, horrors. (As I recall, this was when I suddenly realized that I hate the phrase "passed away", so there I was, telling people that my father had died, and I had seen his dead body. Six months later, I was telling people that my mother had also died. Quite unreclaimable.)

In fact, I not only saw his body: he was cremated after the autopsy, so I saw his body without it having been prettied up by a mortician. It was the first actual dead body I had ever seen. This is one of the reasons that I insisted on seeing him, and went to considerable lengths to do so. I'm still very glad I did; it was tremendously important. It's hard to articulate why, but it was.

[thothmes]

Well, my Dad died, and in his final hours they called me down here from up in Burlington, and told me that I could come up and see him, that he would be gone soon, but that he was far enough along that he would not notice or respond, and that he could linger for a very long time that way. I opted not to drag Steve away from his patients to provide childcare, because I considered that my Dad, his wife, and their son, my youngest brother were a complete family unit. Dad was not and would not be alone, and I would be intruding in the grief of his wife and younger son, who would feel the need to play host and hostess a bit. My brother was 28. Dad and I had had a lovely visit when I brought Eldest Daughter up a short time before to see him. I had said all that needed to be said, and so had he. We had known that good bye might be the last one.

The last glimpse I had of him was the fine grey ash we poured into a hole of the moist earth of the memorial garden. He was the non-custodial parent. For months and months at a time each year he was physically absent from my life. It was harder for me to feel that he was really gone, and not just a phone call or a letter away, because I did not see his body, and his absence was part of a familiar pattern. It would have been easier to know in my bones that he was dead if I had seen. I still have no regrets. I did what was best in the circumstances. My last memory of him in life is strong and a good one. It was a good visit, but I also know you were wise to seek finality too.

I absolutely abhor all the ways people avoid saying that someone died. I have instructed my nearest and dearest that although I come from a family of scholars, and have a long and illustrious collection of successes in my academic record, when my time comes, they are not to say I have "passed". Indeed the truth of it will be that I have dwindled and failed, and the proper way to express that is to tell people that I am dead, I have died!