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First off, this isn't a poor me, or hey, I need your sympathy. Just thought I needed to tell you guys. Most of you are people I'd have a drink with (sorry, not sorry, I don't like beer or Whiskey), but it'll be a week in the early, well, later than now, but sometime today morning...
My dad passed away last Saturday morning. I didn't really wanna talk about it much (kinda still don't), but it's been a little while. So...
My dad was a farmer, an athlete, an equestrian of some renown in two completely different disciplines of horsemanship, a Great dad to me and my brother, and a devoted husband sine 1961 to my mom. He was 82 years old, one month and day after his birthday.
He was always tough. We used to keep hay in a neighbor's barn a couple miles away from the home farm. Good barns were (still are) hard to find and small square bales take up lots of space when you have a busy stable with 40 to 60 horses. One day we were loading a hay wagon to take back to the stables. I think we had 6 of the 7 layers loaded. I always threw them out to the rack, and dad stacked. So, we're 6 layers up (which is probably at least 10 feet off the ground, when, as I'm throwing a bale out the barn door, dad catches a heel in a bale string and disappears off the wagon! Not only did he fall off the wagon, but he managed to land on the wagon hitch on his side.
Needless to say I was a bit panicked! So as I'm trying to support him, he says 'just let me catch my breath." Ok... so after about 5-10 minutes, he climbs back up to the top layer of the wagon, and we finish loading the hay. Turns out he broke 3 ribs! But still finished loading the wagon!
That's on reason why it was so hard to watch him get old. It wasn't just the aging, Dad was unfortunate enough to get one of those special diseases that no one's ever heard of, maybe @cwbullet has... Corticobasal Degeneration.
Watching my dad suffer from that was awful. But, such is the way of things. Once he was diagnosed, my NP aunt suggested that they move into a retirement/nursing home right away to establish routine patterns and be closer to Palliative care. Oddly enough, he outlived my aunt (mom's youngest sister by 5 years) due to her having pancreatic cancer.
So it's been a week. It sucks. But life goes on. I feel fortunate, I had all four grandparents into my mid 40's and still have my mom now (although her dementia is getting pretty bad). I took the 3 days off before thanksgiving to just mostly avoid work and help out around the family farm that my brother runs. Back to work Monday.
I have some of his stories from when he was a kid that he used to tell us. You guys might enjoy them
we always did.
Anyhow... time to go to bed (way past, actually). Thanks for reading.
Adrian
Edit: I finally figured out the word I was looking for...
My dad passed away last Saturday morning. I didn't really wanna talk about it much (kinda still don't), but it's been a little while. So...
My dad was a farmer, an athlete, an equestrian of some renown in two completely different disciplines of horsemanship, a Great dad to me and my brother, and a devoted husband sine 1961 to my mom. He was 82 years old, one month and day after his birthday.
He was always tough. We used to keep hay in a neighbor's barn a couple miles away from the home farm. Good barns were (still are) hard to find and small square bales take up lots of space when you have a busy stable with 40 to 60 horses. One day we were loading a hay wagon to take back to the stables. I think we had 6 of the 7 layers loaded. I always threw them out to the rack, and dad stacked. So, we're 6 layers up (which is probably at least 10 feet off the ground, when, as I'm throwing a bale out the barn door, dad catches a heel in a bale string and disappears off the wagon! Not only did he fall off the wagon, but he managed to land on the wagon hitch on his side.
Needless to say I was a bit panicked! So as I'm trying to support him, he says 'just let me catch my breath." Ok... so after about 5-10 minutes, he climbs back up to the top layer of the wagon, and we finish loading the hay. Turns out he broke 3 ribs! But still finished loading the wagon!
That's on reason why it was so hard to watch him get old. It wasn't just the aging, Dad was unfortunate enough to get one of those special diseases that no one's ever heard of, maybe @cwbullet has... Corticobasal Degeneration.
Watching my dad suffer from that was awful. But, such is the way of things. Once he was diagnosed, my NP aunt suggested that they move into a retirement/nursing home right away to establish routine patterns and be closer to Palliative care. Oddly enough, he outlived my aunt (mom's youngest sister by 5 years) due to her having pancreatic cancer.
So it's been a week. It sucks. But life goes on. I feel fortunate, I had all four grandparents into my mid 40's and still have my mom now (although her dementia is getting pretty bad). I took the 3 days off before thanksgiving to just mostly avoid work and help out around the family farm that my brother runs. Back to work Monday.
I have some of his stories from when he was a kid that he used to tell us. You guys might enjoy them
we always did.Anyhow... time to go to bed (way past, actually). Thanks for reading.
Adrian
Edit: I finally figured out the word I was looking for...
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