Life is weird. Death is weird. One minute you are talking to someone and then the next minute you are planning their funeral and to never being able to talk with them again. One minute you can look at their face and the next minute you’ll never see them again on this side of heaven. As an estate planning attorney, I talk about death a lot and stress the importance of planning because you never know when something can happen. I talk about advanced directives (living wills) in all those conversations. As a daughter, these conversations became real as I watched my own family fall back on their own planning and prior conversations about end-of-life care and decisions.
Death
Death is never easy. My father died in 2006. He had been sick for a long time and we knew his last breath was coming soon. Though we had time to prepare, I don’t think anyone can ever be prepared for a loved one’s death. The death of a close loved one strikes to the core of your soul. I watched my dad take his last breath on an August night in 2006. On an October morning in 2025, I watched my step-father take his last breath. His was unexpected – at least until the last week of his life.
The Strange and Unexpected
At the age of 78, he fell and broke his leg, went into the hospital and never returned home. So strange. Watching that rapid decline is strange and surreal. All my legal knowledge and experience with Advance Directives for Health Care swirled in my head over the last few days as I was with my mom at the hospital and the need to decide about his end-of-life care was apparent. Legal knowledge and the heart are two different things, though they often do intersect when it’s apparent the person you dearly love cannot continue to live without machines and medicines that are merely keeping them alive, not providing life or any quality of life. When faced with a decision to end the medical care that merely keeps someone alive, knowing the loved one’s wishes makes the decision easier, though it’s still heart wrenching.
The decision to stop the machines and medicines that merely keep someone alive necessarily means life will end for that person you love dearly. That decision ends the hopes and dreams for the future. That decision means grief, anger, loneliness, emptiness, a void that can’t be filled, and figuring out life after their death. It means learning a new normal. That decision means never looking into their beautiful eyes again.
Life and Death Come at you Fast
Life and death come at you fast. Three weeks. Three weeks before his death, was the last conversation I had with Chad. He and mom were preparing to go to Cruisin the Coast, an annual event they loved attending to look at the thousands of classic cars that descend on Biloxi, MS for that week. I was house and dog sitting for them for this year’s Cruisin the Coast. He would enter the hospital the day after they returned from this year’s Cruisin the Coast. Before they left, he told me he wanted to be sure Mama had a good time because it might be their last trip there. He had some health issues that were impacting his mobility and quality of life, but not life threatening at this time. But, he was thinking of Mama.
I told him to look for a La Femme – a 1955 Dodge car made specifically for women – that it was my dream car. Two days before he died, I learned that he looked everywhere for that car, never to find it. However, he did find a 1955 pink Cadillac model car to give me in its place. That’s the car in the picture with this blog.
Relationships are Complicated
We had a complicated relationship, particularly at the beginning. He was retired from law enforcement and I, when he first entered our lives, was a criminal defense attorney. He wanted to marry my mom, I thought he was full of hot air (and I told him so). I didn’t make integrating into the family easy for him. Over time, we grew on each other. I watched (sometimes glaring at him because I was my mom’s self-appointed protector) as he fulfilled the promises he made to her, most importantly to love her and care for her. During their 18 year marriage, he treated her children and grandchildren as his own. This pink car is a testament to his love for my mama’s children – the thought he put in to trying to find the car of my dreams and then getting me something that represents that dream. He thought of me, us.
Thank You for Loving My Mom
I watched my mom struggle under the weight of my dad’s health battles, held my mom as my dad took his last breath, and then watched my mom navigate life after her husband of 39 years died. After my dad died, all I wanted for her was to be happy, loved, and cared for. Chad, with all his flaws, accomplished that. He did what I challenged him to do – prove to me he wasn’t full of hot air and that he would make good on all those promises he made.
His most egregious flaw was his love for the Tennessee Volunteers (yuk!). So, for Chad, as a thank you for loving my mom so well: Go Vols!
