#fatherr

TOP 10 FAVORITE FINAL FANTASY BOYS;

I made a gift for online father🥹

✨️✨️✨️

Also the sycthe design

my dad: he looks like shit

Part Two

My father’s lungs stopped working and as a result he was intubated. I will never forget the look in his eyes when he was intubated. For me it is one of the most haunting memories of the entire sickness. I remember my father strapped up against the medical bed, sedated and pinned down while doctors pushed a thick tube down his throat. I will never forget the look in his eyes when they were preparing to intubate him. I think in that moment he felt one of the deepest moments of heartbreak in his entire life, feeling his heart absolutely breaking, seeing his faith in goodness and happiness and hope completely get violently stripped from him. He saw the worst happen instead of something better, a nightmare becoming real instead of a triumphant story as he had hoped he would experience. I think he experienced medical trauma that he had no idea existed before that moment. I think in that moment he realized he possibly was not going to get better and that his suffering would get only deeper. But my fathr was so brave, he did not cry at that moment, and he did not cry often in the hospital. My father fought so hard for his life, even in that moment he gave it all he had. After he passed the doctors said that he was incredible for lasting as long as he did despite the cancer and sepsis, that he only lasted as long as he did because of the amount of sheer, inner brute strength he possessed.

Thereafter every day was like a medical emergency, a nightmare scenario that was my life instead of something I would watch on TV. I was extremely sick at that time. I was battling panic disorder with agoraphobia and Lyme Disease acutely, and the stress made my symptoms worsen severely. Since my father chose me as his power of attorney, I was in charge of making his medical decisions and going to the hospital most days. Only people who have gone through exposure therapy for phobia’s can understand how excruciating it was physically and emotionally to go to the hospital every day despite being agoraphobic. So many times I would vomit outside, sob, have panic attacks, etc., but I would just keep pushing, moment by moment, day by day because my Papi needed me. My love for him was greater than my suffering. His need for me was greater than my anguish, and it felt worth it all just to sit next to him and kiss his forehead and hold his hand. To grieve every day, on top of battling the phobic thoughts and compulsions, my spirit and mind felt shattered and broken beyond comprehension. I felt like I was just focused on functioning one tiny bit at a time, to just keep breathing, just swallow this food, just take one more step, just breathe one more breath. Because Papi needed me. It was at this time period that besides when I was begging God to let my dad get better, bargaining with him, etc., I stopped praying for Him to help me on an individual basis. I didn’t see how God could exist and allow me to be diasbled and agoraphobic and watch my dad die at the same time. 

For several months my dad lay in the ICU, too fragile to be moved downstairs or sent home. The doctors wanted to take him off all of the life support and have him pass, but he staunchly refused, wanting to stay on it and keep fighting and hoping for enough improvement to get better enough to do some kind of treatment for the cancer. What the doctors understood implicitly was still something he and my family and I couldn’t seem to accept. Our religious beliefs were in overdrive then, convincing us that a miracle was imminent and we would be rewarded for our faith. Sometimes I would catch my father in moments of sheer agony and exhaustion, seeming to want to give up, to want to ask for peace and to let go, but whenever we asked he would say no, that he couldn’t and wouldn’t leave his children. And that he didn’t want to die, he wanted to live so badly. My dad fought off the sepsis, endured the dialysis, did not eat for months due to being intubated and the cancer having grown too much, and breathing through machines, defecating on his bed, with tubes and IV’s all over his body. He would beg for ice, for water, for food, but his body couldn’t process food anymore and we couldn’t give him any because of all his tubes, and he couldn’t even do simple tasks anymore. 

There was one day where I realized my dad wasn’t going to get better. I asked the doctor why my dad couldn't do cancer treatment if the fungal infections and bacterial infections triggered by sepsis had been fixed. He essentially told me, look at your fathers body, look at his stomach, it is impossible for him to recover. Cancer was everywhere. I really saw him in a bare naked way at that moment that perhaps I was too numb to have noticed before. I saw his skeletal frame, his massive tumor-ridden stomach, his beautiful, precious body full of disease and saw that he was too far gone. The doctor was right. There were too many tumors and the cancer had infested into his body beyond any hope. I broke down weeping in the hallway, because I knew mentally at that moment that the battle was over, my prayers weren’t answered, and I was going to lose my precious Papi. 

It wasn’t long after that that my dad’s moment of passing came. One day I was alone with him with my twin sister and best friend. My mother and siblings had left to eat something for dinner and so that my mother could finally get a break from watching him. She and my Aunt Goya were his constant companions, especially my mother. She was his constant support and best friend while he was dying. On that early evening I read to my father from the Bible, and I prayed for him and to him. I told my Papi to not be scared, that God loved him and he was so loved by Him. I told him through prayer that God didn’t want him to be scared, that God was going to show him right now why he shouldn’t be scared, and that his father and his aunt and everyone he loved that passed before him were right there with him. And I kept telling him again and again, to not be scared, that God loved him, and that he was safe and would be okay. I imagined in my mind while I said it that he was seeing God behind his eyelids, showing him light and peace and happiness, and that he saw his father and loved ones who had passed there too. Right when I finished the prayer and said amen, all of my father’s machines started beeping and going off, and then there were nurses and doctors everywhere, moving me away from him and starting CPR on him. I remember crying and screaming, feeling like I was outside of my body looking down. I remember feeling the confused mixed up emotions of not wanting to let him go but also wanting him to leave his tortured body and not suffer even a milli-second longer. I wanted my Papi to be free, I wanted him to no longer have to live this God forsaken existence. I felt or saw a bright light flash up towards the ceiling. I knew immediately it was my Papi. The doctor’s kept doing CPR, but I knew he had left. My father passed on December 1, 2019.

His death was devastating to me because there was no way I could fix it, no hope it could get better. He was just gone. After his death I suffered from nightmares and flashbacks. I received PTSD treatment for trauma, and it helped immensely. That along with therapy for grief and allowing time to pass has allowed me to gain peace even though I will never be okay with the fact that this happened to my father, and I miss him always.

Since his passing my health has gotten significantly better to the point where I have been able to return to school and am almost done with my bachelor’s degree. I have never returned to the Jehovah’s Witness religion. The mixture of my illness, my father’s death, and the ensuing pandemic resulted in me being able to sort of wean myself off socially more and more from the religion in a gradual way. This gave me the opportunity to leave without having to be questioned, investigated, or shunned. Many family members who identify as Jehovah’s Witnesses no longer speak to me, as even though I am not officially shunned as I no longer attend meetings I am seen as “worldly” and thus a bad influence. The elders of my congregation thankfully pretty quickly forgot about me and stopped checking in on me very early on. The vast majority of “friends” either disappeared when I got sick or slowly cut me off when I stopped attending meetings and being responsive. For many of them I do not hold any anger, as I don’t expect them to give up their families and their entire lifetime worth of friends and community just to be able to talk to me. I understand that for them to psychologically survive they have to stay in the religion, and for that I feel sad for them. The few friends who have kept in touch have done so in secret and privately; I will never share their names because I do not want them to get in trouble or suffer consequences in the religion for continuing to be my friend. If I ever go public with my experiences I know that I will be shunned and my name will be announced in my old congregation as someone who is no longer a Jehovah’s Witness and is ex-communicated. I truly don’t care about that, although I do worry that it would cause suffering for my family members still in the religion. For the most part though, I have mostly just let the religion fall into the past and don’t really think about it or let it interfere with my current life and current movements forward. I have started seeking therapy for cult survivors, as I have found that there are some lingering effects from being raised in a cult, especially with difficulties with intimacy and feelings of safety. Regardless of the difficulty of confronting that emotional trauma, I feel so thankful for leaving the religion. I would do it one hundred times over, and I know that my father understands why I had to leave from where he watches me and loves me regardless.