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I Love You!

Daddy I Love you. I know you are tired, I want to let you know you can go home if you need to. I cannot give up hope; I have to keep praying, however, I understand if you need to go. I will be all right, my husband will take care of me.

Those are the words I said to my dad in order to let him know that it was all right for him to leave this world. I said those words knowing that once he knew that I would be all right, he would go home. I knew in my heart that he was waiting for me to assure him and allow him to go.

It took me awhile to say those words. They were not easy to speak by any means. Our family doctor, his nurse, the hospice nurse, and the hospice Chaplin had all told me that I needed to say goodbye because the time for daddy to leave was nearing.

That day I knew, I don't know how, but I knew that day would be the last day with my dad here on earth. I called a minister friend for advice, he told me that I would need to give daddy permission to go home if that is what he wanted. He said that, at that point, daddy would gain strength and fight even harder to live or that daddy would choose to go home and that I needed to be ready to handle which ever happened.

I did not want to say goodbye. I did not want to give my daddy spoken permission that he could leave this world. I know that is selfish but I was not ready to let go. I went into the bathroom, where I cried and prayed.

That is when I realized that my selfishness could cause daddy to hang on longer as I knew daddy was extremely worried about how I would deal with losing him. Even though hospice nurses and others had told me, it took that time in prayer for me to realize. When I realized this, I knew I had to tell daddy that I loved him and I had to give him permission to go home if he needed to.

I sat there on the corner of the hospital bed and told my dad: Daddy I Love you. I know you are tired, I want to let you know you can go home if you need to. I cannot give up hope; I have to keep praying, however, I understand if you need to go. I will be all right, my husband will take care of me.

For the majority of that afternoon and night I sat in dad's hospital bed holding his hand talking to him, singing to him and praying for him. Daddy took his final breaths in the wee hours of the morning with my mom, my husband and me by his side.

I held my dad in my arms and told him I was there and that I Love him as he took his final breaths. I have been told, that a persons hearing is the last thing to go. I know that daddy heard me saying, I am here and I Love you as he left this world.

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