When did you last see your father?

I visited my dad in California late last year for his birthday, but that wasn't the last time I saw him. I saw him several times in memory care too, but that wasn't it either. I was there when we forced him to stop driving, and when we moved him from his home, but the last time I truly saw him was well before that.

I want to forget the ways he changed. I'd prefer to remember him as he was, as I knew him. A vibrant, independent, stubborn, brilliant, kind-hearted man. He was the guy who set (and probably still holds) every Cupertino YMCA record for total miles run and total weight lifted - no joke, he had the t-shirts to prove it. The guy who wrote a letter to his parents in India every week, without fail. The guy who brushed his teeth for five Sonicare cycles - that's ten minutes for you manual brushers out there. Ten minutes! The guy who sent me fruit in the mail on the regular because California produce "is just better than anywhere else." It totally is, for the record. The guy who couldn't mention his wife without crying, even 18 years after her passing.

The guy who prayed with me every night. The guy who only watched TV standing up. The guy who didn't know who Mickey Mouse was. The guy who loved root beer, single malt scotch, and cigars but only allowed himself to indulge on special occasions. The guy who considered every day with me a special occasion. The guy who fasted every Saturday. The guy who ate jalapenos raw, whole, with the seeds as a fun snack. The guy who played devil's advocate in every argument because he liked to keep the conversation spicy too. The guy who taught me about loving and caring for the people in my life, even (and often especially) your co-workers. I don't know when I last saw him, but it's been a long time. I've been actively mourning his loss for years.

"And when did you last see your father? Was it when they burned the coffin? Put the lid on? When he exhaled his last breath? When he sat up and said something? When he last recognized you? When he last smiled? When did you last see your father? The last time he was healthy, active? The last time he had an argument about something? Those weeks in which we tried to say goodbye were like a series of depletion's. Each day I thought 'he can't get less like himself than this.' Yet each day he did. So I've been trying to recall the last time I actually saw him. The last time he was unmistakeably... there. In the fullness of being, I dunno... him." - Blake Morrison

I wasn't able to be with my father as he took a turn for the worse over the last week. It's frustrating and painful. But even if I was at his bedside last night, that wouldn't have been the last time I saw him, anyway. I don't know when it was, but this grief isn't new. Cheers, dad, to a unique life well-lived, and to the man you were when I last saw you - the last time you were unmistakably there... in the fullness of being you.