I’ve written a lot here about the utility in considering your own mortality. By acknowledging the reality that you will one day die, you can filter out lot of nonsense and make more intentional use of your time. However, today we will be considering the mortality of your loved ones.
Though it feels strange to say it or type it, my father died on March 23 at the rather young age of 70. He was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2018 (well, smoldering multiple myeloma) and after a stem cell transplant in 2020 and a biochemical relapse in 2022 he was doing well. The cancer was under control. But then the drugs he was taking began to impact his lungs late last year, and then he went into the hospital around his birthday in February and then it went from “this is very treatable” to “this is going to kill him” and after a final chaotic and frightening and disorienting week my father died.
During his final week in the hospital, I was sleeping in his ICU room. He was never alone and had family and siblings and cousins and his grandson around constantly. He died with his family all around him, holding his hands. After he died I sat with his body for a few hours, quietly taking it all in. It was a very intentional time for all of us.
I was lucky to have a good relationship with my father. Over the last 28 years we played a ton of golf together and spoke every day on the phone when I wasn’t back east visiting my parents (often for several months at a time).
And then in the final week when I was sleeping in his hospital room, it gave us—or really it gave me—the chance to make sure I said or reiterated anything I wanted to make sure my dad knew. That I loved him. That most of my best childhood memories involved hanging out with him. That he was the reason I had my values around family and my work ethic.
My dad was a rather casual fellow and not the most sentimental person on the planet and so whenever I would tell him for the thousandth time that I loved him, he would nod and go, “I know.”
But the whole experience made me grateful for the fact that I had always prioritized time with family, and it also made me realize how shockingly brief our time with our adult parents can be. In our final days together, my only priority was to say the thing that I wanted to say and do the things I wanted to do, which in this case meant mostly just holding my dad’s hand and talking quietly to him as he got weaker and weaker.
And while it would have been strange if I had been sitting around his house with him watching golf and holding his hand during normal times, the experience did force me to think about how much of our time with loved ones we could spend more intentionally if we acknowledged the reality of death.
I don’t mean to say that every second we spend with someone we love needs to be incredibly intense and that you need to be pouring your guts out to them 24/7. That is a very crazy way to live and would drive you to fatigue and exhaustion. However, if you thought your parent was going to die tomorrow or next month or next year, how might you respond to that the next time you saw them or spoke to them?
I don’t have a ton to say about this right now because I have talked about it so much in the past few weeks and I’m exhausted, mentally and physically, but I think everybody reading this will know what I’m talking about when I say: don’t wait to do the things you want to do with your parents and don’t wait to tell them the things you need to tell them.
I was lucky in the sense that we had at least *some* foresight before his death and for that I am grateful. Not everyone else is so lucky and let me tell you that regret would be a terrible thing to add to my grief right now.
Also? Next time you see your dad, give him an extra long hug. There will come a time when you hug him for the last time.
(Sorry for all the typos on the email edition.)