I'm not finding humour in much of anything yet, so still no funny posts. Your regularly scheduled Hellhole will resume...eventually, I guess.

I want to thank all of you who have commented, e-mailed, called, written and otherwise expressed your sympathy at the loss of my father. I appreciate your support and your friendship more than you know.

This post is going to be more about what happened with Dad, partly because I need the catharsis of writing and partly to answer some of you who have asked me what went wrong so quickly because he seemed to be getting better. The short answer is, we thought so too; it came as quite the nasty shock to all of us (him included, I'm sure). The longer answer is as follows.

His oncologist used the word "terminal" in mid-April but when questioned further, sort of backpedalled on that and said that Daddy was responding to drugs and radiation, so if he started eating better/gaining weight, there was always hope. That seemed to be happening; between tears, tantrums and nagging from various ones of us, Dad seemed to finally take the need for nutrition more seriously. He complained a lot that food he used to like didn't taste the same to him but most of the time, he'd eat something and at worst, he'd condescend to drink a fortified nutrient shake. At each doctor's appointment since then, Daddy had gained weight: a pound here, a couple of pounds there. My brother and I discussed our hope that it wasn't too little, too late, but it was at any rate flowing in the right direction so we had to be satisfied with that. Dad seemed in better spirits, more like himself, less 'out of it' mentally (this happened because he was taking many drugs besides the cancer drug, to counter-balance unpleasant side effects like anemia, constipation, blood pressure issues, etc.).

Things continued to improve, or so we thought. He felt up to a visit from the Bowmans (Alan's parents and brother), chatted and joked with them as usual. He ate decent amounts of snacks, two or three slices of pizza. The weekend of May 18, he felt well enough to leave the house to go out for dinner - a seafood-fest at my aunt and uncle's. Whenever I went by on weekends, he was doing typical Dad-type stuff: messing with the computer, puttering around with this mini-robot he built, watching sports on television.

Memorial Day weekend, we went over on Sunday (Alan worked on Memorial Day itself). We found him sitting on the back porch, chatting happily with a good friend of his. He ate well without much prodding. We'd brought a tray of raw veggies and dips, the tomato-feta salad I blogged about earlier, fresh cut fruit, steaks and brats for the grill. Mom had chicken and pork chops, the idea being to cut off any protest that he wasn't in the mood for the menu we'd planned by having all possible options available. Bo and Sarah (my brother and his wife) arrived a bit after us, bearing gourmet cheeses and treats from Whole Foods. Dad snacked on these items off and on all afternoon without protest and ate a bratwurst with his favorite fixings. I'd have been happier if he'd eaten two, but I figured anything was better than nothing. All in all, though, it was a fun visit. He ate pretty well, had some energy and seemed much more like his old self.

Early the following week, he took a bad fall in the shower. My mom had problems helping him up (if you don't know my mom personally, she is very tiny, 5' 2" and petite) so she had to summon my uncle for help. But the next day when my uncle went by to check on him, Dad was up of his own accord and surfing the internet. After his weekly doctor's appointment, my Mom called to report that his oncologist had told her "the end was not very far away". I was like, "What. The. Hell.?!?" because he seemed so normal and upbeat on Sunday. Apparently, he was going very far downhill very quickly, wasn't eating or getting out of bed, had few lucid moments in between medically-induced naps. We all (me, Alan, Bo and Sarah) came over on Saturday and he wasn't up to eating, visiting or anything. The difference a week had made was frighteningly palpable. He had lost weight, he looked awful, he felt awful - when he was awake enough to feel anything.

In the midst of it all, something kinda funny happened. I'm glad it happened, at any rate. At one point on Saturday (this would have been 2 June, if you're following my somewhat haphazard timeline), I found him napping on the couch in the den, semi-recumbent in his corner as was usual when he fell asleep watching television. I rubbed his knee and said, "I love you, Dad." This startled him awake.

"What?!? What?!?" [he seemed alarmed]
"I just said, 'I love you, Dad'."
"What? WHY?!?"
"Um, 'cause you're my Dad?"
"Yes, yes, I know that - but WHY?"
"Um...'cause you're wicked smart and witty and sarcastic and fun to hang out with."
"Ohhh [in a tone of great realization]. Okay then. I love you too."

That was the last conversation we had. That was on Saturday and on Thursday morning, I got the call at work from my mother that I'd better get home. My office is about an hour away, and I didn't make it on time. Although I did make it on time to see the hearse sitting in their driveway with the back doors open, which gave me a very horrid turn. I had almost calmed down from that when I stepped outside to take a phone call from one of my friends (you get better cell phone signal just outside their house than inside), started pacing in their side yard and turned around just in time to see them - uh, loading up. Gonna take thousands of dollars in therapy to get over that one, let me tell you.

We had a memorial service last Saturday (9 June). Sarah enlarged a great photo I'd taken of him to 11' x 16', which we framed and displayed. We put the same caption on it as you see on Flickr: "You damn kids! Get off my lawn!" which some may find irreverant, but then he was an irreverant kind of guy. This was displayed along with his Green Beret and an American flag. My brother played "Amazing Grace" on his bass, his own arrangement which segued into "Taps". A longtime family friend spoke a few words and we ended things with my dad's favorite song by his favorite rock band: "Going Home" by The Rolling Stones.

We're doing okay, I suppose. I have good days and bad patches - very bad patches. A great deal of the time, I'm fine because it doesn't seem real to me. I don't mean that I'm in denial; I understand the concept of death and I realize what's happened. But when we're all gathered at their house, it seems like eventually he'll wander in from his machine shop out back and ask what's new. I can't wrap my head around his total, final absence, that he won't be calling to remind me that a big Formula One race is nigh and ask what time I'll be over. I'm told things will get better with time. I hope so. In the meantime, I'll just keep plodding along.