A year ago on October 28, 2025, my father passed away. It was a sudden situation that had also been a possibility in our minds for years. My father was very heavy and had carried that weight for his entire life. He was a person with tremendous potential and he didn’t fully see that. He supported me always in following my dreams because in many ways he wasn’t able to and I strongly work at not taking my life or gifts for granted. That is in large part because of him. No family is perfect and we had our struggles, but I’m so grateful for the gifts he gave me. He was a great friend to people an amazing grandfather and in so many ways he really was always there for me. We shared a lot of laughter. That was one of his greatest gifts, making people laugh. He had an incredible sense of humor and he was a wonderful storyteller and a great listener. After my father passed away I wrote my experience down to process what had happened. I am sharing those words below.
That Sunday just around midnight I was awakened by my husband. “Your mother is calling you” he said and I knew, something had happened to my father. Something has happened to my father before. Stent in the heart years ago, two or maybe 3 mini strokes, a heart attack. But nothing had taken him down. We always said that he was a cat with 9 lives and that despite being obese for most of his life he had good genes and maybe he’d just be lucky. Well…on October 18th at around 10 pm, his luck ran out.
My mother was frantic as she spoke to my sister and I just after midnight. “I need to make a decision!” she said. What was the decision? My father had a stroke but this one was different. The doctor found another blood clot and wanted to do surgery and “brain is time” we heard him say as his voice suddenly appeared in the background. What did we know? “Do the procedure!” we said in a fog from being half asleep. And then they did.
I fell asleep in some delusion that this time would somehow be the same as the last. That he was and would be ok. I texted my mother in the morning to see how he was doing. “He is in the ICU. The had to intubate him during the night because his breathing was not right. They will keep checking and will take the tube out when they feel it is better” she said. That didn’t sound good.
My father has best friends for 68 years. They met in sleepaway camp when they were kids and I think they are more like soul mates. His friend Larry called me and said that he thought I should go down to Florida. Deep in my heart I knew I should. While booking our flights my sister who is my identical twin, realized that she didn’t have a real ID and that her passport was expired. That sent a shock of fear though us and was the first humorous experience of many that occurred throughout this process. Thank god for laughter. I’ll skip the many real ID journey details but just say that we made it to Florida on the evening of Monday, October 20th.
I was so scared to go to the hospital. What would I see? What would my father look like intubated with a breathing tube, catheter, etc? After many deep breaths we found our way through the maze of the Delray Medical Center to his room. We walked to the door and saw him from what seemed like miles away. It was only him and my mother. I called out, “Hi Daddy!”. He lifted his head and looked in our direction. I still have yet to process that feeling. As we walked toward him, we discovered that he could not see. Heartbreaking. His right and dominate arm was paralyzed. He could not communicate which has always been his favorite thing. Right away my heart mainly shut off and all I could think of was what his life would be like if he survived this?? My father appeared to be trapped in this body.
We had been told on Sunday that he had an Ischemic Stroke and that he had another blood clot in his brain. What followed that were seizures and brain swelling which the doctor treated with saline and anti-seizure medication. On Tuesday when we arrived at the hospital, we did not know that this would be a life altering day and when you’re in situations like this you don’t have hindsight clarity. You have in the moment confusion and some deep level autopilot instincts. The intention that day was to see if he could respond to commands. If he could they would take out the breathing tube. With a steady stream of friends and visitors including his landlord the nursed spoke to him. “Can you nod?” she said. He could. “Can you lift your legs?” she said. He could. He still however was not able to see, move his right arm or communicate in a back and forth way. My mother was hopeful, excited that things were moving in a good direction. I had a deep pit in my stomach.
Since he responded to commands they let us know that that were taking the tube out. During the course of the past few days we had many conversations about DNR (do not resuscitate). If he had a heart attack? We said Do Not Resuscitate. The Doctor agreed and had hinted at that choice due to his physical state. We had to make decisions even before we had gotten down there that were sad and so deeply painful. Like I said, autopilot. I had prepared for a heart attack (DNR), I had prepared for more brain swelling and seizures, I had prepared for blood pressure issues but I hadn’t prepared for what happened next.
They started to decrease the oxygen support levels slowly. He was still intubated and very out of it. We had not connected and he was not present. Little by little they got to the point where they could see that he was able to breathe on his own. Excitement buzzed in the room. They would be able to take him off the ventilator. I however was not excited. I felt scared about what this could mean. If he could breathe on his own but couldn’t see, couldn’t move his right and dominate arm, couldn’t connect and communicate, couldn’t walk, etc. As an almost 83 year old obese man who used a walker, where would this leave him? Just before they took the tube out they did a nebulizer treatment into the breathing tube. This would bring up the lung secretion. I didn’t think too much about any of this because I had no clue what the purpose of it was. What I think I now know is that it was so they could see if he could clear the secretions on his own. Once the tube was out and he had only an oxygen mask we quickly discovered that he could not. I had no idea what this meant all I knew was that his face was turning bright red and his eyes were bulging. He seemed to be choking. The nurses came in and helped him and he settled down. A few minutes later a doctor I hadn’t seen yet walked in to the room and put a stethoscope on his chest moving it around and listening. She put the stethoscope around her neck and walked over to me, my sister and my mother. She was looking down to the left with a grave expression on her face. Her body language expressed to me that something was wrong. I was running on adrenaline and ready to make any decision that required my head and not my heart. My heart was put on the back burner. “We have two options” she said. She told us that he had lost his ability to swallow due to the stroke. Because of this, he could not clear secretions and would continue to aspirate into his lungs which would continue to risk pneumonia which he already had a mild case of. Since my father had been intubated during the surgery to remove his blood clot and then intubated again at 5:30 the following morning due to breathing issues this time they would have to do a tracheotomy and connect the oxygen tube though a hole they would create in his windpipe. They could not intubate him orally again because it causes damage and would create more issues than it would solve. We asked what would happen if we chose to do this. While still looking down and away the doctor explained that the vent would keep him alive but he would need rehab and he may never regain full consciousness and he would most likely be on that vent in a home for the remainder of his life. The image of that option made my chest squeeze. That is not a life. No bagels with friends every day, no conversations on the phone, no independence. A life in the dark. What was the other option I asked. She said, “He would go to hospice”. Life or death. Those were our options. But life at what cost? What is living? Could we choose mercy and a death with dignity? We quickly chose the latter. Without a thought. Give him mercy. He deserves that.
The doctors agreed and they said he may not make it to hospice. His body was so weak. I quickly began making phone calls to my husband, to jet blue. Changing flights, booking flights. So much adrenaline words cannot express. I told my husband that he had to come to Florida right away with our kids. My sister shared the same info with her kids. Cousins who had grown up at my parent’s house sharing more memories than you can imagine.
My father’s heart stent had to be deactivated and that took some time due to paper work and then they wheeled him out of the ICU with all of the machines and lights into the quiet and peaceful halls of hospice in the same hospital. Hospice feels ethereal. There is a buzzing energy of people hanging on the edge of life and death. His body looked so gentle like a small child. An innocence that is hard to describe took over him. He did not speak, he did not open his eyes. He slept and we sat watching his breathing, looking at his feet, checking his urine output. Checking for signs of death.
That Wednesday, October 22nd my nephew arrived. He is my father’s first grandchild. They spent so much time together over the years acting like two mischievous young boys, being silly, going on adventures or just sharing space at my parent’s house. He walked in the room and you can feel his reaction. We left the room for a while so they could have time together and perhaps say goodbye. How do you say goodbye? My father lived through the night with his friends visiting, his family and us the steady core. On Thursday both mine and my sister’s kids arrived along with my husband. I have two children and my sister has three. The oldest is 20 ( he turned 20 on October 24th in hospice with a cake that no one ate and party hats) followed by our daughters who are 17 and our sons who are 13. Yes, we are twins who by chance had kids within a few weeks of each other. I had been texting my son and daughter asking them if they wanted to see their grandfather. I told them that they should do what their heart told them to do. I explained that this was not “living grandpa” it was “dying grandpa”. My father who had a big personality and was so full of light and life and often was the center of the room was now a peaceful and quiet essence. They all decided together that they wanted to see him. I was so amazed at their bravery. The five grandchildren entered the room. They stood around his bed, rubbed his arm, spoke to him. The beauty is impossible to put into words.
What followed were 5 days where we waited, spent time, laughed hysterically, got starbucks coffee from the lobby, ate subway salads from the cafeteria (not good), hoped for good parking spots in front, put on our sticker name tags each day with the same bad photo taken on the first, spent time with family, spent time with my father’s best friends, talked about memories, shared photos, cried, used the one bathroom right by his bed that had no lock, listened to music, sang, read poetry, asked the hospice nurses 5 million questions, asked the doctor 5 million questions, googled relentlessly, went out to dinner, went back to the hospital through the emergency entrance because the front entrance closes at a certain time, learned to find our way through the various confusing passages of the Delray Medical Center which became our home away from home, planned the funeral and got burial plots, picked up cash late night, had more coffee, had sake, met the other families in hospice and shared our love and experience, watched people come, watched people go, smelled the cinnamon scent in the hallway, lived on adrenaline, sang at the top of our lungs in the car, spoke to my father, said goodbye and it’s ok to go many, many times as my father lay there still with his eyes closed.
On Monday October 27th we knew we only had one more day. We all had to go back to New York for various reasons and we were so sad that some of us may not be able to go back to Florida for the funeral. We were leaving. What we thought would be quick turned out not to be which brings up questions like, “am I killing my father?” I asked the hospice nurse and she said no. Actually, the few that I asked all said no. How was he hanging on?? On that final day we gave it all we got. We didn’t leave the room. We ate every meal there, we stayed until 10:30 pm. We sang to him, we spoke to him, we comforted him and filled that room with love. We sang songs that he taught us like “Blue Moon” in two parts, we sang “Blackbird” by the Beatles, we read Jewish prayers even though we had no idea what we were doing, we read, “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. At the end of the night we asked the amazing hospice nurse for a garbage bag so we could clean up. For the first time out of all of the nights she said that she would clean. She would make it immaculate. So kind. So caring. We gathered around his bed and this time we really said goodbye. We told him that we were going back to New York and that we loved him. He was barely breathing that day and I have no idea how he kept going. We went back to our Airbnb and my mother called at midnight. He had passed.
This whole time I had been searching for the spiritual connection. So much medical info. So many medical terms. That last day I asked the new hospice nurse her thoughts. She was a believer. She had watched her father pass and she shared her story with me. In his last moments she said he had a huge smile on his face and he saw people who had passed. That gave me comfort. My father wasn’t in a state to be able to do that but I still felt comfort. I now realize that my father held on for 8 days so we could all be together until the very last possible moment and then he left. My sister said that it was like the Channukah miracle. He so loved being together. He loved friendship and connection. He loved to be with his grandchildren and that’s what he got. What a beautiful thing. Heartbreaking for us, but for him it was what seemed to be the perfect end of his time in his body experiencing his life. This was an experience that will take some time to process. Writing about it helps. We will miss him very, very much.
We did in fact make it to the funeral. I’m so grateful for that.
