I keep intending to set aside time to write but somehow days go by and I don't find the time. Is it too painful? I don't know. I don't think so. When Father's Day was approaching, a friend asked me how I felt about it. I replied that this day did not hurt or make me sad, mainly because Father's Day had meant nothing to dad for the past two, maybe three years. Neither had his birthday on May 5 or Christmas or any other special day.

I have thought about grieving and what it was like when my mother died in 1986 and what it's like now. There is very little comparison, at least at this point. After mum's death - a short but very painful death as a result of lung cancer - I was in a state of disbelief, shock. Although I was with her when she died, the reality did not sink in for months. I think I had denied her pending death because I could not bear the thought of life without her. I cried for over 10 years.

With dad it is so different. I have had years to prepare for his death. Because of my work I have had the opportunity to understand the disease processes involved - vascular dementia, arthritis, incontinence and because I was his primary caregiver I made the decisions that basically dictated how his life would end. I had none of these advantages with my mother.

I continue to wonder about my grief process with dad. I have had a few episodes of gut wrenching crying but not as many as I thought I would suffer. At times a picture of dad comes into my mind - sitting in his wheelchair the months before his death - and my heart breaks quietly for a few moments. I have to think I am handling things better because of the years of crying I experienced before dad died. It occurs to me that I feel in a way that dad is still here...over in Lincoln Place waiting for me to visit. But maybe Doug Manning is right; maybe I will wake up one night and start to grieve the way I did for my mother. Maybe not. But I'll take it one day at a time. At times I see a dark hole looming, because I have lost my second parent, the only person left who would always love me no matter what.

The minister at Lincoln Place sent me a book (by Doug Manning) called Don't Take My Grief Away From Me. The book leads the reader through the process of saying goodbye - from the funeral to understanding death, grief, changes and the beginning of a new day. This book is short as are his others, plainly written but full of compassion and support. He says that one should plan a memorial as you think it should be, as a gift of love to the person who has departed. I did that with dad. He had it in his will that we would have a regular funeral as we did for my mother and the service would be in the church near our family home. With the support of the minister I chose to have a short memorial service in the church dad and I attended together in the last years of his life, the church in which he got married. I believe dad would have been very happy with my decisions. The service and my words were my tribute to him. Many friends who attended later told me they were so glad they had come; for them the service was moving in its simplicity and honesty. The biggest thing I have learned from Doug and his books is that there is no right or wrong way to grieve. There is no timetable for grieving. Most importantly we all have the right to grieve and we should not let anyone take away this right by saying things like: "It's been long enough; time to get over it and get on with life."

About 3 weeks after dad died I got a phone call from a friend of my parents. She was quite upset that she had not been told about dad and so had missed the memorial; apparently my aged aunt was to have let her know. I did try to call her several times but there was never any answer and indeed, I didn't even know if I had the right phone number. We chatted for a while and I asked about her partner Bill. She told me Bill's mind was fine (he's 95) but he is living in a retirement home because he needs a lot of assistance with daily living. It turns out Bill is in a place very near me that dad and I had looked at but which dad had turned down saying there wasn't enough closet space... but he was turning everything down then. Somehow he ended up in another home but I wonder how things might have been had he known Bill was there. I asked Margot for Bill's number; we are planning on meeting at his place to have a visit. I look forward to it.

I think about the last hours before dad's death; how I sat by his bed and talked to him, telling him how much I loved him and how I would look after everything, that it was OK for him to go. In my research for a section on end-of-life care for my new web site (www.howtocare.com) I read parts of several issues of the Journal of Palliative Care I had licked up at the end-of-life conference in Ottawa in April. I was particularly struck by an editorial in the Winter 1999 issue entitled At the End of Life: Giving Thanks and Forgiving by David Roy. He says that the dying need to be given the opportunity to say thank you and to forgive. In my case my dad was beyond speaking many months before his death; I never really knew if he lost completely his ability to understand.

There was a lot of hurt and anger after my mother's death. I raged at him, something no-one who met him or me in the last few years of his life would ever believe. Doug Manning gave me a new definition for depression: depression is swallowed rage. It was for me. I was in my mind justified in my anger and wondered if I would ever forgive my father for the way he treated my mother during her life, something I rarely talk about. His difficult personality and the increasing dementia did not make things any easier. But somehow I worked it through and ended up seeing my father for what I believe he really was: a man who did the best he could, who loved his family above all else and who never intended to hurt others.

Mr. Roy says forgiving does not mean forgetting or pretending that something never happened. He says: "To forgive is to unknot the strands of humanity in me that have become all knotted up with rage and hatred. To forgive is to refuse to carry that rage and hatred forward into my future and, if one is dying, to forgive at that moment is to refuse to carry rage against, hatred of, and rejection of another human being into death. To forgive is one of the highest and most difficult of all human acts. If I can do that, then I can with solid hope ask to be forgiven when it is remorse over what I have done to another that is knotting up the strands of my existence."

When I looked at dad near the end of his life, I saw a man who suffered physically, emotionally and psychologically during his last years. I could have abandoned him as my siblings did but they did not understand the blessings of forgiveness which I found. There was no point in not forgiving my father. There was everything to gain in finding the love and strength I needed to care for him. I consider helping a loved one leave this life an immense gift. I will be forever thankful that I was able to sit with my father as he died and support him with words of love and thanks. I am a better person for having been given this gift.

I know I am rambling...sort of how my mind seems these days.