It’s 12:39 a.m., and I can’t sleep. It hasn’t even been three weeks since my father passed away in Santa Barbara. But I’m thinking of him and the “gift” he gave me in his passing that I cannot ignore.
Don Ranney died at almost 93 years old on August 30. He was diagnosed exactly one month earlier with AML (acute myeloid leukemia). Given his age and comorbidities, his oncologist and primary physician told him there was nothing that could be done to stop the progression and that he should get his affairs in order. They said his red blood cells would diminish, and it would happen fairly quickly. My sister sent a text message that we, his four children, needed to rally and come to the aid of our father in his final days. The first thing he said after hearing his diagnosis was: “I’m gonna have ice cream every day!” And he did!
I made three trips to Santa Barbara from my home in Arizona to spend the best quality time I ever had with my father. We weren’t always close, and as a teenager and a young adult, I gave him plenty of reasons to be suspicious of me. He returned the favor, giving me plenty of reasons to be suspicious of him. (We “played” on different teams politically.) But his good health kept him alive into his nineties, and through the years, I was able to be more than just a son to him. I was also able to be his friend and, in some ways, one of his confidantes. We never let our differences in politics affect our own personal relationship, especially at the end.
Maybe you’ve had the good fortune of spending time with a loved one whose days are specifically numbered. I previously had not. Our friendship had grown to the point that when I first saw him a few days after his terminal diagnosis, I wasn’t scared or speechless in his presence. In fact, I felt nothing but love for him. It was at this time in early August that he began to share with me what would be his biggest gift to me in our nearly 71-year relationship.
Nobody who ever knew my dad would describe him as a religious or spiritual man. He did not grow up in a religious family but converted to Catholicism when he met my mother. This was merely a necessary step to win her heart. And when she was tragically taken, much too soon, at the age of 51, my father stopped going to church. And he never went back.
However, in my three visits to Santa Barbara at the end, I could see that he was contemplative in a way I had never witnessed in him before. He seemed reflective, deep in thought. I wondered many times in those three weeks what it must be like to be that close to the end and have the awareness of it all.
These contemplations revealed to me an inner strength that I did not know he possessed, and it was a joy to be in the presence of. His sense of humor never left him to his dying day. After enjoying his last dinner, the night before he died, one of his nurses walked into the room and said to him, “Don, why don’t you lay back and relax. Just lay back.” And as Don began to ease back in his recliner, he blurted out, “I’m getting layed!”
The greatest gift Don Ranney left his children was to show us how to leave this world with grace and dignity. I hope I can be just nearly as strong as him when my day comes.
You must be logged in to post a comment.