What I Told My Dad Before He Died

Two weeks and two days after my dad entered the emergency room, he died.

With each twist and turn, it felt like he was continually up against something new and unusual that doctors didn’t quite know how to handle, or what to tell us. His body didn’t respond the way they expected, or it did something that surprised them entirely. I kept telling them it felt like I was living in an episode of House. They didn’t disagree.

I knew things weren’t going in a positive direction when the hepatologist told us that the oncologist had stressed the importance of telling the family how concerned he was. I knew I needed to tell my dad how I felt sooner rather than later. Because I truly didn’t know what the next day would bring, or even if my father would be present.

So I did what I always do. I wrote.

I grabbed a photo of me and my dad when I was little, and sat it next to his hospital bed. Doctors came in and always asked, “This is you, isn’t it? It’s so obvious.”

I read my letter to my dad, and in true Doug fashion, he said, “Muffin, please don’t cry. I can’t hear what you’re saying.” Then he told me I was reading too fast. Then once it was finished, he told me I had stuffed so much history into it that we needed to read it again.

We never did read it again, but I wanted to share what I wrote. This is the letter I read to him: