John V. Horst, Sr. November 1, 1928 - January 29, 2006

As I previously posted, my father has been critically ill. He died on Sunday, about 4:30 PM. It was supposed to have been my shift, but the home health aid, Patti, was helping my mom watch him.

Originally I had a fear that he would die on my shift, and I didn't want that to happen. Now, though, I kind of wish I had been there.

The whole family was there Friday, all day. I had the Thursday night (11 PM Thursday to 9 AM Friday), and I hung around because the doctor was coming to check on him. Of course, it didn't take a degree in medicine to know he was slipping further away. Sometime on Wednesday or Thursday his kidney (he had only one left) shut down--no output at all, so we knew he wouldn't last very long. The doctor thought he wouldn't live through the day, but knowing my dad, we figured it could be as much as a week. I finally went home around 6 PM on Friday, exhausted.

My mom doesn't want to see him go, but for me, he's been gone for some time. We had said our goodbyes some time ago, so neither one of us (my father or me) felt we had uncompleted business. I am glad it's over. Watching the slow death of a loved one is very hard. Working an extra 40 hours each week (with some shifts over night) is very difficult. No matter how much you would have liked to think he was going to somehow recover, you know it's not going to happen.

It was his time, finally.

Thanks to everyone who helped up through this time. I can't say enough for Patti, the home health worker who has been helping us for the past 3+ months. She is a rare individual, indeed.

Well, I need to get some sleep, now.