Two weeks ago yesterday, my dad passed away peacefully from renal failure. I posted about it to Facebook and social media, but I didn’t say anything here because, at the time, I didn’t really feel up to it, and I don’t have a lot to add about this whole experience, or about my relationship with my dad, that I didn’t already cover. Besides which, in the weeks that have intervened, some other stuff came up that I wanted to talk about.

My dad had been sick for a long time, and on dialysis for over a year. Even if my relationship with him had been perfect, I would have welcomed the end. Caring for him was taking a huge toll on my mom’s health, and about a week before he passed away, she suffered from a mini-stroke, which she fortunately caught before any significant damage was done, and which the doctor’s chalked up pretty much entirely to stress.

I’m grateful that hospice was there to give my mom some respite and to make my dad’s last days as painless as possible–for him and for us. By mutual agreement, there won’t be any funeral or memorial services. My mom is doing well and taking it easy for the first time in a long time. I’m searching for something to say to wrap this up, but there really isn’t anything. I guess I just mean this to be a marker, to say, “This happened.” I don’t have any more insight than that. So there it is. This happened.