Sunday night my fiancé’s father, Bobby, was rushed to the ER completely unresponsive. After getting him stabilized, it was determined that his COPD ridden 1 & 2/3 lungs (he lost 1/3 of the left to cancer 5 years ago) had double pneumonia. Pneumonia that was likely left untreated for months. For days he sat in the ICU, doctors trying to get his oxygen level up high enough to go home, but that just wasn’t a reality. A ventilator was really the only way to preserve his life, to force his lungs to work at a reasonable level, but that would have meant spending the rest of his life on it, a life lived in a nursing home (which is no life at all really). Bobby didn’t want that, even though none of us were ready to accept what that meant for his fate. He just wanted to go home and in the end that home was to God.

 

Thursday afternoon the “comfortable way to die” was initiated. Watching and waiting for him to pass was the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever witnessed. Bobby’s mother celebrated her 88th birthday watching her only son pass away. Even if I hadn’t known this man and his family for the last 11 years, I would have been crushed. Friday at 1:30, he took his last breath. He was only 54 years old.

 

If you’re the praying type, Heath’s family could use all the prayers for strength they can get while they learn to live life without Bobby.