My dad died September 13....
My dad died September 13, peacefully in his home. His last days were amazing, intense, profoundly moving. He approached dying without fear but with incredible curiosity. One morning he opened his eyes: "I think I'm dead." I said, "No. sweetie, not yet. You're dying, but you are still here with us. We're glad you are here but when you are ready to go then that's ok, too." The next morning he came back from that in-between place and looked at me with his beautiful blue-eyed gaze and said: "I'm cultivating a kind of calm. I had such a long and wonderful life, it would be a shame to betray the beauty of that life at the end." He didn’t betray that beauty – he lived it right to the last.
When he learned he was dying and went into hospice care, his first reaction was: "Damn! I so much would have liked to be able to vote in this election!" Well, in Oregon, once you cast your ballot it counts even if you die before election day. We were able to get him an absentee ballot and he voted-- about 5 days before he died. During those last few days, I spent a lot of time sitting by him, stroking his head, holding his hand, sometimes curling up next to him singing lullabyes... and silently reading poetry. At one point I asked him if he wanted me to read him some poems out loud and after a long pause he said, "I am too busy doing other things to read poetry right now." I think he had become the poetry of his life right then.
Elise and I spent the night before he died sitting with him and then sleeping on the floor of his room. The next afternoon I spent with him, just being, sitting in the sun by his window, holding his hand, in a room that seemed to be filled with light. Elise had gone to a midwifery appointment out of town. I was alone in the apartment with our daughter Kirsten who had come up from SF to offer company and support. Late that afternoon, I was in the living room talking quietly to Kirsten (about what she could do to take her life in a new, more positive direction)… and at that moment my dad slipped silently away. Elise arrived back soon after. We took our gentle leave of him. I am filled with sadness and awe -- and gratitude for the amazing gentle man, and the wonderful father he was.
My brother Chris and my sister Abby and I agreed not to try to do a memorial service (with everyone so widely scattered) but rather to gather in memory and celebration across the distance. I’ll be sending a little packet (a few poems and photos of Jim and Phyllis) to family and friends and we’ve set up this website for sharing photos and messages. We also plan to carry my dad’s ashes back to the east coast and to place them on the shore of Chesapeake Bay near the place where Phyllis’s ashes were put into the waters of the bay last year. As dad’s poem “She Stands in the Cold Water” so beautifully and lovingly describes the two of them, Phyllis, “intrepid swimmer,” was always out in the waves, while he “rest[ed] quietly at the margin of the liquid world” – her harbor.
Thank you for sharing memories and celebrating these two amazing lives with us.
love, Karen
When he learned he was dying and went into hospice care, his first reaction was: "Damn! I so much would have liked to be able to vote in this election!" Well, in Oregon, once you cast your ballot it counts even if you die before election day. We were able to get him an absentee ballot and he voted-- about 5 days before he died. During those last few days, I spent a lot of time sitting by him, stroking his head, holding his hand, sometimes curling up next to him singing lullabyes... and silently reading poetry. At one point I asked him if he wanted me to read him some poems out loud and after a long pause he said, "I am too busy doing other things to read poetry right now." I think he had become the poetry of his life right then.
Elise and I spent the night before he died sitting with him and then sleeping on the floor of his room. The next afternoon I spent with him, just being, sitting in the sun by his window, holding his hand, in a room that seemed to be filled with light. Elise had gone to a midwifery appointment out of town. I was alone in the apartment with our daughter Kirsten who had come up from SF to offer company and support. Late that afternoon, I was in the living room talking quietly to Kirsten (about what she could do to take her life in a new, more positive direction)… and at that moment my dad slipped silently away. Elise arrived back soon after. We took our gentle leave of him. I am filled with sadness and awe -- and gratitude for the amazing gentle man, and the wonderful father he was.
My brother Chris and my sister Abby and I agreed not to try to do a memorial service (with everyone so widely scattered) but rather to gather in memory and celebration across the distance. I’ll be sending a little packet (a few poems and photos of Jim and Phyllis) to family and friends and we’ve set up this website for sharing photos and messages. We also plan to carry my dad’s ashes back to the east coast and to place them on the shore of Chesapeake Bay near the place where Phyllis’s ashes were put into the waters of the bay last year. As dad’s poem “She Stands in the Cold Water” so beautifully and lovingly describes the two of them, Phyllis, “intrepid swimmer,” was always out in the waves, while he “rest[ed] quietly at the margin of the liquid world” – her harbor.
Thank you for sharing memories and celebrating these two amazing lives with us.
love, Karen
Comments