Oh Dad, you wanted this day to come, the day you’d be a 100-years-old on December 24, 2024. Probably put your leg on the kitchen counter to brag about your balance and flexibility. Spread out your supplements, demonstrate your workout routine, and show-off the latest exercise equipment you ordered. Used only once, maybe, but you’d keep it, just in case.
At 96-years-old, you were loving life. Still vital. Independent. Just got a different vehicle, a small pick-up.
But in February of 2021, Erik found you in the late afternoon. We think you’d been exercising and got on the floor to take a nap. Glasses still on your face. You’d texted me that morning, and I had responded, yes, we had school (we’d been having some snow days). That was around 11:45, and I went about my day teaching. You never opened that text.
Later we found paperwork on which the doctor had written, “You have congestive heart failure.” You’d never told anyone. At 96, what would one do? You hated prescription medication and only took blood pressure meds when forced to. Don’t worry, I have all your alternative medicine books. They won’t get burned up. I consult them.
Making it to 96 was quite an accomplishment, and your sudden death stunned us all, for you were in good health. But you died where you wanted to–in the house you were born in. So to honor your 100th birthday, I thought I’d link again the posts I wrote about your nine decades of life: the first 30, the second 30, and the last 30.
As I go through your personal belongings, I find your heart. Among the items was a CD with this song by Gary Chapman, A Man After Your Own Heart. May those who listen to it find hope in our risen Savior whose birth we celebrate on Christmas Eve, the real reason for the season.
