What a sad day, you must be exhausted. Be very good to yourself, take very good care of yourself, And do not get sick. I deepest sympathy to you and your family.
My thoughts and prayers are with you. This all has to be so overwhelming. Take those quiet moments to remember the comfort you have been, and know that you need comfort too. Please take care.
Thank you all so much. I am getting much comfort from having been able to be there with him. It meant the world to me. And I am absolutely convinced he waited for me. I got the call at 8:50 AM that the end was near. Sid was being picked up by the AL van to take him to DC at 9:30. I put him in his wheelchair, wheeled him over to the AL, left him with the receptionist and told her to give him to the driver when he arrived. I was in my father's room at 10 AM. Although he was comotose, I took his hand, told him I was there and that I loved him. Within 20 minutes, he was gone.
As soon as my father was admitted to the hospital, I alerted the Alzheimer Home where Sid stayed when I went to Chicago for Thanksgiving, so they were all ready when I called today. I'm bringing him over there Thursday night; my flight leaves on Friday; I return Monday night; and I will pick Sid up on Tuesday morning.
He drove me CRAZY when he heard where he was going. He asked me at least 5 times within a half hour's time - When am I going over there? When are you coming back? When are you picking me up? I got so frustrated, I typed it up in HUGE FONT, and taped it to his walker - I am taking you to Amy's on Thursday night. I am picking you up Tuesday morning. Don't ask me again! That's not very loving and patient of me, but right now, I can't deal with his issues.
Thank you again for all of your thoughts and prayers. They are much appreciated.
Joan, I am so sorry for your loss but in spite of myself I had to smile at the note you taped on dh's walker. What I want to know is did it work? Have a safe trip you are in my thoughts and prayers.
Hugs to you, Joan. I know this is a hard time for you. I will be thinking of you. You are such a special person. I send many thoughts to you for your dad and for you.
Joan, my sincere condolences on the death of your father. I hope you have some time to grieve this huge loss before returning to your caregiving responsibilities. Please be gentle with yourself.
Joan, I am so very sorry for the loss of your father. I hope you have a safe trip, and some quiet moments to think about what you need at this time. Our thoughts are with you. (Please pack a very heavy coat for Chicago.)
Posted on FB, Joan but want to extend my deepest sympathy to you on the loss of your dad..No matter how old or how ill our daddies are, they are still our rocks..yours was for you and mine was for me...I lost my dad in 1999 and I miss him still today...how I wish I could have more time with him...but both are now well and whole and at peace. Blessings and Peace to you and your family.
Joan--so sorry to hear of your loss. When I was in the same position last year, I consoled myself that at least my Dad would never be aware of Steve's further decline. Somehow, that helped.
Joan, My sincere condolences for the loss of your beloved father. I remember so well losing my dad at 39 years of age (me, not him), I felt like an orphan. I loved him above all others. However, you cared for your dad valiantly with great sacrifice and you can rest well with a "well done, faithful servant" , knowing that he now resting in peace.
Joan, you are so in my thoughts. Loosing a loved one is such a blow, under any circumstances, especially when you are already so very overwhelmed. Special thoughts and feelings particular to your Father are just that....special! Allow yourself to address his passing in the way you need to. All else, of course you know, will still be there. My prayers are with you sweet lady.
My deepest sympathy to you, Joan. Our parents, usually, have been part of our lives for a long time and when we lose them (even though some of us, like you, have taken care of them for a long time and it saps our energy and strength), when we lose them, it takes a part of us so deep we never get over the loss. I've lost both of mine and still feel the terrible longing for what once was.
Take care. May you have the strength to continue to serve your husband's needs, which won't be easy after all you've been through.
Thank you all so much for your condolences. For those of you who did not see it, this is what I wrote on my Facebook page, and I meant every word of it:
I took care of my father the best I could these last 2 1/2 years, was given the gift of being with him at the end, wrote and read the eulogy for him, and laid him to rest next to my mother. I am not mourning his death. I am celebrating a long, wonderful life, and I feel completely at peace.
I posted the eulogy on FB that I wrote and read at the funeral. It's kind of long when you read it, but I practiced it for days, and it took 11 minutes when I spoke. If you would like to know my father as our family knew him, here it is (probably in a few parts, because it's too long for just one post):
Thank you for coming today to celebrate the life of a member of what Tom Brokaw has named The Greatest Generation. How is it possible that Nate Stairman, the quiet, unassuming youngest child of poor Eastern European immigrants became part of the greatest generation? Same as everyone else - accident of birth. My father was born in 1918, the last of 6 children of Bessie and Abraham Stairman. It just happened that he was of age when WWII broke out, and next thing he knew, he was in an army barracks in England, sleeping in his overalls, so when the air raid sirens sounded, he could jump out of bed, fully dressed, slip into his boots, and run down to the bomb shelter. In those days, the branch of service he joined was called the Army Air Force. He never shot a gun or flew a plane. His job was to keep the logs of the flights going in and out of the airbase. He was stationed in England for 3 ½ years, dodging German bombing raids every night. Before he left for England, he had been seriously dating my mother, who, I have to say, never seemed the rebellious type to me. However, when he was granted leave in July 1942 to Spokane, Washington, my mother boldly told my grandmother that she was taking the train – cross country – to visit my father. My horrified grandmother told her that no self respecting single woman was going to meet up with a man and spend time with him in another State unless they were married. And so, after a 3000 mile train ride by herself, she and my father were married on July 27, 1942 in Spokane, Washington. He returned to England with occasional Stateside leaves, and came home for good in 1945, where he, like millions of other WWII veterans settled down to raise their families, and like most of those men, never spoke of the war again. There were always correspondences between him and some of his best army buddies, but he never discussed the war or his role in it with us. It wasn’t until a few months before his death that he finally told me a little about that time in his life.
But today I want to tell you about Nate, the Daddy, grandfather, and husband. I want to share with you the qualities that made him such a good man and father - His quiet demeanor, his strength of character, and his love for his family. My mother was gregarious, outgoing, friendly, talkative. My father was quiet. And I do mean quiet. Hardly a peep out of him. He did what my mother told him to do, and he seemed happy doing it. This is my favorite story about my father, the silent one. Everyone in Rhode Island knew his older brother Harry. Harry was as noisy as my father was quiet. He knew everyone; he belonged to every organization; he made himself known wherever he went and with whomever he met. There wasn’t a person in Rhode Island who didn’t know Harry Stairman. When Sid brought me home to meet his parents, he said to them - This is Joan Stairman. “Stairman?”, said his father. Are you any relation to Harry Stairman? Sid answered, “She’s Harry Stairman’s brother’s daughter. In unison, both his parents said incredulously, “Harry Stairman has a brother???? So yes, he was quiet, but in his quietness, he was the best Daddy ever. He was way ahead of his time in the child rearing department. Men in the 1940’s and 50’s did not do diapers. They did not do floor walking with crying babies. That was left to the women. Not my Daddy. He did diaper duty long before Pampers were invented, and those of you who remember cloth diapers know what a disgusting job that was. Although I was thrilled when after waiting 6 ½ years, I finally had a sibling, I was not quite so happy when I found out that she was a screamer. My 1950’s Daddy took turns with my mother walking the floor with the little screamer. As we grew, he remained quiet, but did his Daddy duties without a bit of fuss. When Arlene or I or both of us let out blood curdling howls from our bedroom – DAAADEEEEE! He didn’t say a word; he just came running in with the rolled up newspaper, to kill that horrible bug he knew we were yelling about. When either one of us had an activity to attend – a USY event; a dance; a movie; it didn’t matter what, and we and all of our friends needed someone to drive us, my mother would say, “Daddy will do it”, and of course, he did.
When we found my parakeet dead on the bottom of his cage one morning, my Daddy held me in his arms while I sobbed into his chest. He put the bird in a little box and buried it in the back yard for me. And do I need to tell you who cleaned the cage and changed the food and water every day that bird was with us? Just a few months ago, I told my father that I was thinking about getting a pet for my husband, Sid, and I mentioned a parakeet. His sense of humor was still intact at 94 years old. He told me he wasn’t going to be cleaning the cage; that I would have to do it, so I had better think twice about it. Sid didn’t get a parakeet. Arlene and I both have fond memories of being taught to dance by standing on his feet. Not at the same time, of course. When I started dating, he never said a word, just sat in the corner with a book, while my mother said to me – Daddy doesn’t think you should go to the drive-in because he knows what boys are like. I, of course, had no idea how my Daddy could know what boys were like. But I swear to you, here at my father’s grave, that they made me take my little SISTER with me to that drive-in movie. She sat in the back seat the whole time talking her head off, preventing whatever my father feared because he knew what boys were like. This quiet man had a spine of steel. His sister, my dear Aunt Frieda, was battling metastasized breast cancer at the same time my mother was battling lung cancer. 40+ years ago, we didn’t discuss cancer, the prognosis, the treatments, or impending death the way we do now. Everything was hush, hush. Everyone knew they had cancer, but he bore the brunt of both of their prognoses alone. He went to work every day, and came home every night to unspeakable horrors of what the cancer was doing to my mother. There were many times when both my aunt and my mother would be in the hospital at the same time, and he would go from one room to the other. It was during this time that I became engaged, and was planning a June wedding just five months away. In order to allow me the joy of my engagement and wedding, he never told me how dire either of their situations were. Sadly, I was too self absorbed to see it. It wasn’t until after I returned from my honeymoon did he tell me that my mother only had a few months left. My aunt held on for another year and a half, so while mourning the death of his 49 year old wife, he was watching cancer take his dear sister. He never complained. He bore it all stoically and quietly. Then one day, after 6 years of being a widower, he met Anna Feinstein, and all of our lives changed forever – for the better. He fell head over heels in love, and remained that way until the day he died. Of course, she was the outgoing one with the huge network of friends, and they all came to love Nate, the quiet one. Best of all, she provided Arlene and me with the brother we never had. All grown up with no diapers to change and no nighttime screaming involved. Once again, Daddy went along and did what he was told, loving every minute of it. Especially the travel – cruises to the Panama Canal and Alaska; Elder Hostel educational trips all over the United States, and what he called the best trip of his life – Israel. Okay, so it took Ann five years to talk him into the Israel trip – very unusual because, as I’ve said, he always did what he was told. It was his fear of being blown up by terrorists that made him initially balk at that trip. To Be Continued...................
More than anything, he adored his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Not too long ago, he asked Arlene and me if he had been a good father. We assured him that he had been the best Daddy ever. He told us that he did not say it often, but he wanted us to know that he loved us. And Marc and Lisa need to know that he included both of them. Just as if they were his own children, Daddy told me often that he loved and was very proud them. He was thrilled with his 3 grandsons, Joel, Derek, and Richard. But when Perri came along – finally a GIRL – wow, was he happy. I will forever be grateful to Richard and Kelly for making the trip to Rhode Island with Delaney, his first great grandchild. They were adamant that he and Ann see their first great grandchild in person. As sad fate would have it, it was Ann who did not live to see Delaney again or know of the birth of Ethan and Riley. At the end of his life, when he had lost interest in most activities, and was no longer able to move from his chair to wheelchair without maximum assistance, the one thing that brought an instant smile to his face was the pictures of his great grandchildren. I would wheel him up to my computer and show him the slideshows that Arlene would send of Delaney, Ethan, and Riley. He would smile and laugh at each one. He loved hearing of their funny antics. He loved with all of his heart, and he was loved back by all of us. It was an honor to have him as a father, and I thank God that I was able to be with him holding his hand as he quietly left us. Rest in peace Daddy. We love you.