Yesterday I lost my hero - my father passed away

Yesterday my father passed away.  Though it was not unexpected, it is nevertheless heartbreaking.  He has always been my hero and now he is gone.

A couple of years ago my father was in a horrible auto accident where his truck skidded on thin ice and went off the side of a hill leading to an overpass and rolled a few times.  Touch and go for awhile, but eventually the doctors put him back together pretty well.  That is what mainstream medicine does best.  Tragically, some of what mainstream medicine does worst came into play and my father never made it out of the hospital from the day he was first admitted until his death yesterday.

First he got pneumonia and then MRSA, which happens all too often in our hospitals.  Those were eventually cleared up, but the MRSA took a very long time and he was pumped full of antibiotics for months and months.  In the meanwhile he was given the horrible nutrition of hospital food, very little of which he could likely absorb properly due to the antibiotics killing off his good intestinal flora.  Somewhere along the way, wasting away and in pain, he lost the willingness to go through the extensive physical rehab needed to get him out of bed and on his feet.  And it was all just maddening for me to not be able to get past the hospital authorities and rest of the family to help him.

When I remember my father, I will not think of the final months and years where he was wasting away.  Instead I will remember the good times we had.  Though they were far too few, they will be cherished and within my heart forever.  So, in a way perhaps I have not really lost him after all.

Goodbye Pops.  God how I loved you so.