My father passed away last night.
To make a long story short, he was admitted into the hospital back in October for kidney problems; was soon diagnosed with metastatic bladder cancer; was discharged from the hospital in November; spent two weeks undergoing radiation therapy but was unresponsive to it; couldn’t undergo chemo due to the poor condition of his kidneys; spent the last couple months at home deteriorating until we had to place him in a hospice; was in the hospice for 14 days, rapidly deteriorated in his final two days, then he died with my grandmother at his side. I wish I, my mother and sister could’ve been there with him at the end to say our farewells, but my mother has her own health issues at the moment and it all happened so very quickly.
My father wasn’t a very good father, and neither was he a very godly man, contrary to whatever he may have believed about himself. But neither was he a monster. I may be very unorthodox when it comes to my practice of Christianity and my interpretation of the Bible, but I do believe in forgiveness, and I found it within myself to forgive him his faults and his failures. Now I pray God speeds him along to his next life.