At about 9:30 pm, I could hear him breathing hard. I went to check on him and he said he was out of breath. I told him I was worried, that maybe it was his heart. He said he had no pain but just needed to catch his breath. I told him maybe I should take him to the ER, but he adamantly said he would not go, he was fine. Very shortly after, his hard breathing got worse until he slipped into unconsciousness. It was really scary! :( I had already called 911 and the ambulance came only minutes later. They put him in the ambulance but it was on the way to the hospital when his heart stopped.
I got to sit with his body in the ER where I imagined his Spirit reuniting with my mom, his mom, and his brother who died at 8 when my dad was only 10. In spite of my devestation, it was truly VERY comforting.
The past three weeks have been an emotional roller coaster for me and my family. It's been heart-wrenching and chaotic but overwhelmingly comforting and beautiful. I am filled with gratitude for having had the best dad in the world. Overall, I am just so grateful that he was so wonderful and that he lived such a good life. I was sooooooo blessed that he was MY Dad.
Longtime friends, people in my church and in my home school group instantly rallied around me, visiting, calling, bringing food. Most of my family came on the Wednesday after. Brenda traveled from Japan and Cindy from Utah.
We had only two days to plan the funeral, but it turned out beautifully.
How wonderful that the weekend was Easter and that we could celebrate the resurrection! Also, how wonderful that it was general conference and that we got to hear wonderful messages from our prophet, President Monson and the apostsles. There were many talks about the resurrection which strengthened our faith.
The past couple of weeks my sisters have been here and we've been going through TONS of important documents, figuring out all the bills, and making sure everything is paid! :) We are hugely blessed that my dad left us this home (the one I live in) and another building-- a four-unit apartment complex. He set it up as a living trust so now my four siblings and I own them together. After going back and forth, we have decided to hold off on the idea of selling for a couple of years. We are all too attached to this home. It will be HARD to part with it when the time comes although we know it will be coming.
I was already so behind on our blog, and then this obviously put me much more behind. I'm going to try to catch up, because I really do love having a blog and writing down feelings and posting pictures. I'm going to put up some posts from all that we've been up to for the past 8 weeks or so with the dates that they happened. I think I just have to put up way less pictures than I usually do since uploading them takes so much time! :)
This picture was taken in 2008 when I was privileged to give a talk on Father's day and got to speak about my dad. I LOVE his cute smile! How I love him and miss him! I took him so for granted. I'm a little afraid of how much I'm going to miss him. What I would give to have him back! How I would love to just sit and listen to a story and hug and kiss the sweetest dad I could have ever asked for! I'm so glad he's my dad forvever and that I KNOW I will be with him again.
