The Last Lesson
I lost my dad in April of 2020.
It was exactly one week after my family and I should have been with him for Easter. We had planned a visit, to sit by his side, to hold his hand during the Easter service he loved so much. But then the world changed.
COVID-19 swept across the globe like a silent storm. Travel restrictions snapped into place overnight, and his nursing facility went into full lockdown. The virus was dangerous, especially to the elderly and vulnerable.
My kids were scared. The news was a relentless tide of rising death tolls and dire predictions. “Avoid people or you could die” became the new normal. My wife, a neurologist, spent her days wiping down groceries in the garage while wearing a face shield. Our home, once a sanctuary, felt like a prison besieged by an invisible enemy.
And my dad was dying. Slowly. Over years.
The first blow was stage 4 prostate cancer that had insidiously spread to his bones. The unexpected hammer was vascular dementia. If you know, you know. It’s a cruel thief that steals pieces of someone you love until they’re a husk of who they once were.
Two days before he died, the doctor called to tell me of internal bleeding, and that “it” was coming soon.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice heavy with the weight of countless similar calls. “But you’re not allowed to come be with him.”
I had been secretly flying back and forth for 5 years, always on edge, always being told, “It could be any time.” And now, when “any time” had become “now,” I was told no.
You’re not allowed to say goodbye. You’re not allowed to hold his hand through it.
I thanked the doctor. He promised my dad would be under constant care, that someone would be there in the end. It was a small comfort in a sea of helplessness.
Then the call came late at night. I was asleep…
I missed it—my phone lay silent on the bedside table, notifications muted. The nurse called a half dozen times leaving voicemails, her voice strained, as she was holding back tears. In the background, I could hear muffled sounds—distant voices, and something else. A troubling, raspy breathing with gurgling noises that sent a chill down my spine. It was the last sounds I’d ever hear of my dad.
NOTE: It was only years later that I learned from a hospice worker that these sounds—the so-called “death rattle”—are common, not necessarily a sign of suffering or distress. But in that moment, those sounds were haunting.
My wife, listed as the backup emergency contact, picked up when her phone rang.
“He passed,” she told me after shaking me awake. “He wasn’t alone at the end.”
But I was. Alone with the knowledge that my dad was gone. I hadn’t been there. I hadn’t held his hand. I missed the call.
The finality of it hit me like a brick wall, and I felt numb.
We didn’t tell the kids. They were already so frightened by the world outside our door. I couldn’t burden them with more loss, more fear. So I carried the grief inside.
I had just started a new job. I didn’t stop working. I took one day off—the night he died—and then went back to it. Immersed in work, I could momentarily forget the crushing weight on my heart.
I couldn’t give my dad the burial he wanted. There was no gathering of old friends, comrades who had shared laughs and stories for over fifty years. No military ceremony to honor his service, something he had desperately wanted and undoubtedly deserved.
Instead, there was cremation. And there was the daunting task of managing his estate—a mess of debt, paperwork, IRS issues, and pandemic benefits he received in the year he died. Even now, in 2022, I’m still untangling that web.
I kept it hidden for a year. Work didn’t get easier. The hardware project was scrapped. My team moved from hardware to calling software. The economy was in turmoil, and uncertainty loomed like a dark cloud.
I lost my voice.
Eventually, nearly a year later, we told the kids.
It took two years before I could visit him. When I finally did, it was the day after a heavy rainfall. The cemetery was a swamp, and the mosquitoes were relentless—the air swarming with them.
We had planned a family picnic, hoping to find some peace together. Instead, my daughters ended up huddled in our van, doors sealed tight, like the kids in Jurassic Park hiding from a T-Rex.
“There’s a mosquito in here!” they screamed, eyes wide with exaggerated terror.
I was kneeling beside my dad’s grave, cleaning the dirt and overgrown grass off his headstone, swatting at the swarm attacking my exposed legs, regretting my choice to wear shorts. But despite the discomfort, I found myself laughing.
“Really, Dad?” I muttered, looking at his grave.
In that moment, I felt close to him. I imagined him chuckling, shaking his head at the situation.
I hope he understands.
His absence has been oddly ever-present, a silent pain in my daily life. But it’s shifted into a gentle reminder—a nudge to spend more time with my daughters, to work less, and to cherish these moments that slip by so easily.
I think that’s the last lesson he had to teach me: how to see what’s truly important.
Love you, old man.