My father had been fighting kidney and liver cancer for some time. The chemotherapy suppressed his immune system, and he incurred a rare infection on Friday that killed him the following day.
He thought he’d broken his leg. He didn’t know he was going to die. Perhaps that’s for the best. I just don’t know. His passing was quiet and without struggle.
I didn’t have a chance to speak to him one last time. I was unable to tell him what I never had: that I had forgiven him for the past, that I’d learned to see good parts of him in myself, and that I loved him.
So, I’m here in Virginia (which looks like a breathtaking Lionel train set from the highway), seeing family I haven’t in decades and trying to get to sleep so I can see his body before it’s laid to rest tomorrow. I know it won’t be him I’ll be seeing; it’ll be a product of the undertaker’s work. Continued...