My Dad

As many of you know, we moved back to NY in 2005 to help my parents, as my dad had a minor stroke and didn't want my mom taking care of him and the house by herself. In case you haven't heard (most of you reading this already know), my dad passed away 1 week ago today on Monday, Sept. 22. Even though we were aware that his time was coming soon, the suddenness and quickness of the event took us all by surprise.
The night before we had gone into NYC to have dinner with old family friends that we haven't seen in over 30 years and my 2 nieces who live in NYC joined us. Everyone had a great time and my dad was very happy (the picture here was taken during dinner). As he was getting ready for bed, my mom left him for a few minutes and as he bent down in his wheelchair to loosen his shoes, he fell forward out of his chair. He has fallen many times, so Frank picked him up and he seemed fine. He did develop a bump on his head, but has had one before so we didn't think anything of it. After sleeping for a few hours, he woke up and sat up in bed, then told my mom he felt dizzy (not uncommon for him). He laid down and those were his last conscious moments. He was in the hospital all day Sunday, but we were warned very early on that he had alot of bleeding in his brain and that things did not look good. His health situation didn't help matters. Since he was on kidney dialysis for so long, his platelets were very low, which allowed the blood to flow more quickly than normal. The doctors showed us evidence that he had a massive stroke, although they do not know if the fall had anything to do with it.
He had a wonderful last night and died peacefully, quickly and had no pain, which was probably the best thing for everyone. My mom was glad for that, because she knew that he would not have wanted to be conscious, but without his faculties.
The wake was on Wednesday at our home. I had never heard of this before, but the funeral home was not surprised at the request. It actually was very nice and made my mother very happy that he could be home again for a little while. The funeral mass was on Thursday and everything went perfectly. Each of the grandchildren read and I sang "Good-bye My Friend". I have loved this song ever since I've heard it (written by Carole King and recorded by Linda Rondstadt), but never thought I would sing it for my dad. I didn't tell anyone the name of the song until they read it in the program. No one was quite sure that I could make it through - even the musical director of the church warned me, but I was determined. Afterwards my mom said that it was great and that she didn't think I would make it through, but I did.
We are physically and mentally drained and now trying to get back to some normalcy (I'm going to go back to work tomorrow). My mom said yesterday that she doesn't understand how she had so much energy to take care of my dad when he was alive and now she feels so tired! I told her that it is completely normal and that she would slowly get her energy back again.
I don't know how to end this other than to say that I know that my dad is meeting Paul Newman and they are having a party up in heaven!