Young and Old - Life is not always fair

Pop-Pop and Grant

When I first started this blog, my Dad (aka Pop-Pop) was doing reasonably well for 78 years old but during the past several months his physical and mental health have declined substantially.  You see, my Dad has Alzheimers and things have been getting worse and worse for him.  Things finally reached a point where my mom was no longer able to take care of him at home and she had to make the decision to admit him into an Assited Living Home.

I am very sad about this for a number of reasons but mainly, I'm sad because I love my dad very much and miss being able to talk to him.  The disease has reached a stage that while he still knows who I am he is not able to speak very well or about things that are "real".  Our last conversation was about the airplane that he was getting ready to board or that I was getting ready to board.  Funny enough, the next day, he told my mom that I had landed the plane but was unsure how I had done it.

I am grateful today because he was able to meet my son and my son was able to spend time with him.  My prayer is that my son will have a warm spot in his heart when I mention Pop-Pop's name.

What made me decide to write about this today was that my wife and I started praying for advent today and today's readings focused on "waiting".  Not a passive, powerless or hopeless waiting, but an active, powerful, hopeful waiting.  A waiting for the celebration of the birth of Jesus the Christ and a waiting for the return of Christ.  A waiting for death and life.

This struck me very hard today because my wife and I are trying to have a second child and are waiting for God to bless us with one (waiting for life).  I am also waiting for my father to pass from this life to his next life with God (waiting for death).  This second part is a very difficult period of waiting for me because it's the first time in my life where I have actively prayed for someone to die.  I love my father so very much it pains me to see him on his worst days.  I call these his worst days because they are the days where he knows what his happening to his mind and that he is powerless to stop it.  These are the days that he says he is ready and wants to die.

Watching this has lead me to pray for my dad to die but also to pray that God's will to be done which has tested my faith as a Christian.  It has tested me because no where in my up bringing or in my adult Christian life was anything like this spoken of.  The "church" seemed to pass over the topic of death and dying.  So much so, that I feel akward and even guilty to tell people that I have been and continue to pray for my dad to die. 

As a Christian I believe that this life is transitory and that sooner or later all of us will die (even the son of God had to die).  So I sit here in this period of waiting, actively praying that God's will be done with my father and actively praying that God takes him home sooner rather than later.