A Daughter's Eulogy for her Father

Death can be so sudden, and take us all off guard. I was on a vacation to the Pacific Northwest I had planned for less than a month, and when I was at the highest geological point, and my brother called me on Monday June 13th, and told me my Dad was in intensive care, who never calls, nor has he ever even returned an e-mail ever, and told me the news that my Dad had a heart attack. He downplayed EVERYTHING. I asked many times "Do you want us to fly out?" I was told "I don't know; there is nothing you can do," and "No; there is nothing you can do." I asked if his eyes were open. He responded with yes. I later learned when they were open the two days following the cardiac arrest, there was no focus or life in his eyes at all, and the hospital staff had to physically close them. When I asked if he was on life support. I was again, told no. "He was just hooked up to an oxygen machine," I was told. As soon as we returned home to Florida from the vacation on the following Tuesday, I settled, yet, my brother continued to call. I asked all the same questions and he continued with the same answers. Against his wishes, I flew out Wednesday night. When I arrived at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California, on Thursday, what I saw was a man dying in a vegetative state. So unexpected, I actually went down to the outside lobby alone after seeing my dad for two hours, with his ex-wife and adult care-giver son, all in the same room, and talked to Stephen, my child's father and person who resides with me, about a project we had been working on prior to this happening. Even after I had sat on a plane for a total of six hours, and seen with my own eyes for two hours up to that point, I still had not accepted MY DAD WAS DYING IN FRONT OF MY VERY EYES. By the next day, Friday late evening the life support was discontinued, and about two hours later my dad passed on to walk beside Jesus. The following is the eulogy I wrote and will read at his funeral the following Friday that will occur on June 24th, 2016 at 2:00 p.m. at Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks Memorial Park, in Westlake Village, California. It is inspiring from a spiritual perspective, and brings faith and hope to the lives of loved ones left behind after death, and optimism for the recently departed.