Dates are insignificant now

Dear Dad,

I spoke with your doctor a little while ago.  I really like her, she is a good doctor and a good person.  Sometimes hard to find the two together in the same body.

You are not getting better.  You are getting worse.  Your body is trying to tell us to let you go, but we are having a hard time.

You cannot swallow, the IVs are providing fluid to restore (if possible) the failing kidneys, but the fluids will begin to collect in your abdomen and we have to give you diuretics, which in turn, cause kidney failure.  You have encephalopathy from the increased ammonia levels and are in and out of consciousness, and since you cannot swallow, your medication has to be administered through an enema.  The treatment for the encephalopathy is to give you powerful laxatives, that will take the ammonia out of your system with the wastes.  Unfortunately, for the laxatives to be effective, it causes you to be dehydrated, so you need more IV fluids, and the cycle continues.

The doctor said we need to consider making you comfortable and allowing your body to do that which it is trying to do.

I have a hard time with this, only because we have been taught to never give up hope.

I have not.

Even though we see the perceived finality of life in this world we inhabit, we have to look beyond today, tomorrow, and the day after.

We have to look at this mystery called eternity and apply our reality to the reality we cannot understand.

Somewhere in this beach of eternity, is a grain of sand that is the longest period we can imagine. When you join your family before you in eternity, it will be less than a grain of sand before we will be with you also.

A blink, a "twinkling of an eye", and we will be together again.

We will not be separated by time, nor space or even circumstances.

We are family.

Family is forever.

I am headed to the hospital to see you.

It is your choice, you can go home anytime you like.