August 2024

 My father passed away.

It had been coming since the end of last year, when they moved him to hospice care.  That's when everyone realizes that the number of things going wrong have hit the point of no return and the best thing is to make the person comfortable until the end.

At the beginning of August my dad stopped eating.  He spent most of his time sleeping.  He was not in any pain and when he was lucid he was himself.

Two weeks later that stopped and he was awake and restless.  Again, not in any pain, just restless.  He went into critical care then.  They knew the end was near, just not how near.

It was three days away.

He passed away the morning of August 24th.  When my step-mom called instead of texted later that morning, I knew why.  It hit hard that day.  Luckily I had a thing with friends that let me not focus on it for several hours and just be with friends.  Since then, grieving for me has been like being on an exercise bike with the resistance turned just a little too high.  Everything requires more effort to do.  Everything.

I don't know when I'll start writing again.  I know I will, but it may be a while [months, not years, knock-on-wood].  Sorry for the gap.