My Dear Daddy

My dear daddy went to be with Jesus on Wednesday, July 30, 2025. The world as I know it has changed forever. There is a chasm in my life now: my life before my dad died and my life after he died. 

Although my dad fought a courageous battle with Alzheimer's for several years, losing him has been much harder than I could have anticipated. I miss him terribly. That I will never hear his voice or touch his soft hands again just crushes me. He loved me and the rest of his family fiercely. 

It all began on July 10th. At this point in my dad's disease, I talked to my mom almost daily, and I'd heard that my dad was declining more and more each day. However, he must have had a really bad day on 7/10 because whatever my mom reported during our conversation prompted me to reach out to Ryan and Kristi (my dad's caregiver). Both of them responded to my texts and encouraged me to visit sooner rather than later, so I booked a flight to Phoenix the next night. I landed in PHX late on Friday, 7/11 but did not see my dad until Saturday, 7/12. I climbed into his hospital bed and laid beside him while he was sleeping. When he woke up and realized I was there, he grabbed my hand and kissed it (I will hold on to this memory forever). He had gotten a UTI that week which made him incredibly disorientated, weak, etc. He was under nurse orders to stay in bed for the weekend. He was mostly bed-bound, but mom and I managed to get him out of bed a few times to watch TV in the family room. Had I known those were his last few times out of bed, I would have taken him outside in his wheelchair. During the weekend, I spoon-fed him, made sure he was hydrated, helped mom change his diaper (OMG - imagine changing a 200-pound baby's diaper!), and we watched some of his all-time favorite movies - Forest Gump, The Naked Gun, Chariots of Fire - and I even saw him giggle at Leslie Nielsen during some of his classic Naked Gun scenes. The hospice nurse visited on Saturday and discussed putting him on a "comfort kit," which meant that we would stop giving him all other medication and start giving him morphine and lorazepam. While this meant that the end was coming, I thought we had months. Ryan, Brandi and I did an "over/under" on dad making it to his birthday... both Brandi and I took the over and Ryan took the under. Before I left on Monday, 7/14, I told my dad I loved him and he looked me in the eyes and said, "I love you too." I cried the whole way home - in the Uber, on the plane, and in my car.

Holding my mom's hand.

This is one of the two times we got dad out of bed during my mid-July visit. I turned on GameChanger so he could watch Matty's baseball game. 

Dad looked so cute in these glasses.

My last picture with my dad. You can see the tears in my eyes. He is wearing a bib.

I miss those hands!

While he looks good in some of the pictures above, you can see how sick he looks here.

My last picture of my mom and dad. <3

From Seattle, I called mom daily for updates. Some updates were stable, some were not. The biggest change at this point is that my dad's appetite had slowed. He was not interested in eating much. He slept more and more. He was not having regular bowel movements. He was literally fading away. Sally Kerchner (my BFF Emily's mom) visited my mom on 7/17 and spent some time with my dad. I have always valued Sally's opinion because she spent her whole career in nursing, and she and I were in California together for Emily's 40th birthday when my dad had his stroke on 1/14/17. She and I also spoke several times while Brayden was hospitalized. She's just a wonderful, God-fearing woman! Anyways, Sally reported back to me on 7/17 that she could see the decline in Mike. She said he had some time. In her estimation, he had months, but he probably would not be around for the holidays this year. 

The following week, I was scheduled to fly to Indianapolis for my 30-year high school reunion. I was flying out on 7/24. I received a text from Kristy (the caregiver) on 7/23 that said, "Your dad is going downhill fast." So of course, I called mom and agonized over whether I should fly to Indianapolis or Phoenix the next day. Sally reached out to me when she heard all of this from Emily, and she offered to go back over and visit my dad again. There are few people in my life that I feel comfortable inconveniencing, but Sally is one of them! That gave me comfort, so I boarded my flight to Indy the next day. I suspected I might need to fly straight to Phoenix from Indy, but I truly did not think that would be the case.

Sally visited my mom and dad on Saturday, 7/26. She said she was going to arrive at 9:00, which was noon in Indy. I waited and waited to hear from her. Em was with me, so she texted with her mom a few times, but the replies were cryptic. I told Em during this time that when her mom told me it was time to get there, I would know it was time because Sally's timeline had always been more "conservative." Around 4:15 Eastern time, we were getting ready for the reunion, as I needed to be there by 5:00. I called my mom for an update while I was waiting on my curling iron to heat. Sally got on the phone to talk to me and said what I was dreading, "You should fly here instead of flying home." I was scheduled to fly back to Seattle on Monday evening, 7/28, but after hearing those words from Sally, I called Tommy and asked him to book me on a flight to Phoenix the next morning. After a lovey 30-year reunion, where I put on my happy face and pretended all was fine, I flew to Phoenix at 6:30 the next morning. Oh, and I didn't go to bed because of the party happening in Chelle's basement where my aerobed was located. 

I arrived at my parents' house at 8:00 AM on 7/27. When I walked into my dad's room and saw him in the hospital bed, I crumbled. It's a vision I never wanted to see. My dear daddy in his final days. His breathing was very labored. He was doing what is called "belly breathing." I held his hand and spoke to him, cried over him, and prayed for his transition into paradise. Out of pure exhaustion, I took a nap, but I tried to spend as much time in his room as possible. I did not want him to be alone. 

At one point that day, he opened his eyes for a minute. My mom and I were both there. He was very agitated and itchy, so we rolled him onto his side and tried to satisfy his itches. During this time, he tried to say something, like "Al..." I will always believe he recognized me and tried to say my name one last time. I tried to give him a popsicle to suck on. He was lying in bed, eyes closed, but he was rooting for the popsicle like a baby roots to breast feed. He tried to suck on it but was unable. He gave up and went back to sleep.

That was the last we saw him in some sort of wakeful state.

At 11:19 PM on 7/27, dad's breathing changed. There was a rattle in his chest, which is commonly known as the death rattle. I was in the room with him. Mom was sleeping in the guest bedroom, and we were taking turns administering his morphine and lorazepam every two hours. I texted Ryan and woke mom up. I texted Scott, who was flying in on Tuesday evening (7/29), and suggested he change his flight. We were researching the death rattle online and trying to understand what the timing was - anywhere from hours to 72 hours, with an average duration of 24 hours. Ryan came over, and the three of us - Ryan, mom and me - laid on the king bed next to dad's hospital bed and talked for a while. I will hold that time as sacred - talking about dad, laughing, crying, telling stories, etc. 

The next 48 hours were long. We were watching dad closely, giving him morphine and lorazepam every two hours. I made a game of telling dad what he was "eating" each time I gave him the syringe of meds ("Here's your pancake on a stick," or "Here's some Chinese food," or "Open up for peanuts."). The hospice team was in and out. They ordered a machine for us to use to clear out dad's mouth which was filling with fluid. Both Scott and Tommy arrived on Monday, 7/28. It was nice to have all of us together, taking turns with dad, talking in the family room, doing a puzzle, ordering food, etc. 

When we gave dad his meds every two hours, we also took his pulse and oxygen level. His pulse went up rapidly around noon on 7/29. It was 130 beats per minute. He had a fever too, and his breathing was so heavy. At 8:00 PM, his heart rate was 142 bpm! Around 9:30 PM, he opened his eyes. Now, we were warned that he could open his eyes at the end, and I very much wanted to be there if that happened. I was sitting next to him when he opened his eyes, and I yelled for everyone to come in. Someone called Ryan and Brandi to come over. Now, it was my understanding that some people open their eyes at the very end, and it is a short window before they pass. Not my dad! His heartrate was 157 bpm - it was going up instead of down. He was running a marathon. We all gathered around his bed, talked to him, cried over him, prayed over him, gave him permission to leave us. After a while, he was still looking at us - but not really looking at us - he was not focusing. Ryan and Brandi went home, Scott went to bed, and Tommy went to bed. It was just me and mom in the room with dad, trying to stay awake but overcome with exhaustion after so many nights of little to no sleep.

My mom fell asleep on the couch beside my dad's hospital bed. I was sitting in a chair by his bed, holding his hot hand, and I tried to write out my thoughts in that moment of grief. This is as far as I got before I dosed him with what was his last dose of medication and dozed off.

Something must have happened at 2:39 AM, because both my mom and I jolted up at the same time. We immediately noticed that dad's breathing had slowed, and his body was cool. We took his pulse and oxygen saturation, but nothing registered because his circulation was gone. I went and woke Scott and Tommy up. The four of us stood around dad, holding his hands and watching him. His eyes were still open. He took his final breath at 3:09 AM on 7/30/2025. I do not remember details about this devastating moment, but I do remember throwing myself on top of him and holding on to him one last time.

As Tommy said in a text to Ryan at 3:13 AM, "Ry, your dad just joined Jesus."

While we should be celebrating the vision of that moment, all I could do was cry. It is our loss, dad's gain. But damn, it hurts.

The hours that followed were a blur. Mom called hospice. The nurse came and declared his time of death to be 3:30 AM. Ryan and Brandi came back over. A very strange woman from the funeral home (which was contracted by Midwestern University, where my dad donated his body for research) showed up to take dad's body away. We laugh now because she reminded us all of Elvira, with strange spider tattoos, dangling cross earrings and long black hair. We still do not know how she managed to move dad from the hospital bed to the gurney? Anyways, dad's physical body was gone by 5:00 AM and we all crashed from utter emotional and physical exhaustion.

When we woke up hours later, Scott, Tommy, Mom and I spent a lot of time talking about dad. We laughed. We cried a lot. We laughed a little more. Scott started reading a binder dad made about his "life story" and would share funny stories as he read them. Ryan was supposed to bring old family videos over but he was not feeling well. Mom called Scott Luck at Stones Crossing Church in Greenwood to start planning the funeral. Brandi came over and we went out for dinner. I do not remember much about that day other than my life was forever changed. 

Brayden said "Bye Baba, Love you." I snapped a screen shot of the FaceTime call.

If this is not the perfect picture of "In sickness and in health, 'til death do us part," I do not know what is!

Saint Sally - she visited again on Monday, 7/28, and gave my dad his meds.

Scott, Ryan, Mom and Tommy (not pictured) hanging out during the long hours of holding court bedside.

I'll write another post about dad's Celebration of Life when I find the energy. It was a lovely service, and I feel quite strongly that dad would have been very pleased with everything. We did our best to honor him and his incredible life.

I love you forever, Dad.