i never really wanted to talk about it until now, but here goes :u
there is a tl;dr on the bottom
first a little background context.
my dad has been diagnosed with emphysema since 1999 (i was maybe a year old at that time). so the doctor told him that he seriously needs to quit smoking so he can live longer. he's been heavily smoking since he was a teen and such, around the late 60s and early 70s, not sure exactly
so since my mom smoked back then as well, they decided to quit on a certain day, i was around 1 and a half when they had their "quit smoking day" and they took a picture with them and toddler brickitect and toddler me. i don't have the picture on hand at the moment but i will edit it in if i find a copy of it
i do have an old image of him from when i was 7
this was at one of my half-sisters' weddings, i distinctly remember it was when i was 7 because i was able to take a table number home that had a 7 on it
my dad's health has been declining over the years. i didn't see anything wrong as a little kid because well i was a little kid, but apparently there was something wrong.
as i grew older, i noticed he got tired more easily, and then he started needing to use those metal oxygen bottles and an oxygen machine at home. the first memory i can think of with the bottles was when we went to the grand canyon of winter '07, we brought a couple of those with us
as i got into my early teen years he's had to use more of them and got tired after walking maybe 600 feet
very recently he couldn't walk much at all without getting really tired since his lungs were in such bad shape, we ended up having to get a motor chair for when we go out
it was on sunday, april 19, 2015 at 7:55am
my mom was looking after him over the night, and my dad got a little panicky at around 4am, wondering where she is
she was in the restroom so she wasn't very far
my brother coincidentally was up (to get water or something), and he told dad that it was okay and that she was coming right back
after mom came back he was relieved i guess? i wasn't up for any of this but mom told me about it when i woke up
after a while apparently my mom fell asleep, and during that time my dad must have slowly stopped breathing. when my mom found him not breathing at around 7:50 she called 911, and they were at our house within like 2 minutes. the paramedics came and took a look at him and they told my mom that it was too late. out there, she noted that a white butterfly flew around our house as if a higher power sent it to do so :u
we were excused from school for the week but i returned after 3 days off anyway
on monday we just sat around and did nothing, on tuesday we went to the funeral cremation place and met with my half-sisters on my dad's side
and on wednesday we went to view him, say our last goodbyes, talk to him, and all that (this part was really hard for me because it kind of made it official that he was gone)
woops forget i didn't mean to write an essay, but here are the main points (aka the tl;dr)
-my dad's health has been declining over the years from smoking
-my mom has been needing to look after him pretty much all day and all night as of late
-my mom found him not breathing at 7:50-something, called 911, they determined he was gone
-family got together and we discussed urns and stuff, and we had a viewing (again very difficult)
-we're trying to cope as i type this
so yeah. i feel better now
