My father died yesterday morning.
And since then, I’ve needed to write something about it. After all, one of my favorite quotes is from Anne Morrow Lindberg:
I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living.
But Dad’s been sick for a long time. Since his Parkinson’s came with dementia, he’s been gone in many ways for years. (Parkinson’s is ugly. Thanks Sergey Brin for what you’re doing to stop it.) When I called on Christmas 2009, it was clear the phone confused him too much, so I stopped calling after that. I last visited in June and while there was some time when he knew who I was, just being there exhausted him out as he strained to figure out who I was and how to entertain me.
But now he’s really gone.
For real.
For good.
Forever.
But that little Christian voice is reminding me “For now.”