In honor of Father’s Day, I’m reblogging a post I wrote on what would have been my Dad’s birthday. He’s been gone more than eleven years, but I know he would have loved seeing my Darling Daughter grow up.
My father died eleven years ago, shortly before his seventy-sixth birthday. His death was caused by Alzheimer’s, as was his mother’s.
If you’re fortunate enough not to have witnessed the deterioration of an Alzheimer’s patient, you’re lucky. The disease robs the soul of your loved one – stealing it in tiny increments and leaving only a shell of the person you knew.
As the disease progressed, I would have sworn sometimes that I could see when Dad’s syanpses received the brain’s electrical charges. For a moment, he’d be there, and then that spark was snuffed out like the flame of a candle. As time passed, those moments grew fewer and fewer. Eventually there were no more.
During his final illness, I visited him in the hospital, though I don’t think he knew I was there. Bag of yarn at my side and crochet hook in hand, I’d sit next to…
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Reading, Writing, Ranting and Raving 