My Father

Notes About My Father

In my opinion, there is a clear distinction between people who are capable of empathy and have immense self awareness and those who do not. My father did not have a greater understanding of the world, but instead a profoundly curious lack thereof. He was so brilliant in that he always asked questions and always pondered. Such a thoughtful person would make it a point to be someone who could be swayed if you had more knowledge and better points about a topic. That's why when you spoke to him you always felt like an equal. He engaged with my questions and inquired thoughtfully in return whether he was truly conflicted or simply playing Devil's advocate. I personally enjoyed both our political conversations and our religious conversations the most as we had both differing and duplicate perspectives. Maybe it's just because my dad is such a great conversationalist, but the love we had for each other and the logical understanding we both had of things made it impossible to grow angry or repulsed by each other's opinions, as political or religious conversations often make you.

My dad and I talked about a lot of things. We talked a lot about money, politics and the unfairness of life. I told him once when I was young that when I'm rich and live on a big yacht he can have his own little boat house attached to a rope leading off the back end of my boat. He would bring this up in any money related conversation for the rest of his life. "I don't need to do much since I'll be having that boat house in my near future." My dad and I wanted to give each other the world, we were each other's worlds.

My father was incredibly creative and spent a lot of his time making art. He loved to color, paint and draw, he'd pull apart one thing and combine it with another to form something new. He made art for everyone he loved out of pure love, creation and boredom, which eliminated creative filters. While I always love art from my dad, my house has a strict theme of only white on the walls and I was always asking him to add more white into the art he made. For Christmas last year he made me the most beautiful paintings that perfectly accommodate me and my white walls-two white canvas' with "More White" written at the top in sharpie. I'll never receive a more loving, thoughtful, special gift than that. Please flip through my slide show below to see the canvas' and some more art my dad has made.

He was also incredibly innovative and self sufficient. He had a new Shark Tank idea nearly every time we spoke. One design he thought of was a way to bring groceries up the stairs in one go. He was thinking of some sort of backpack with hooks on the back I think. He even made a prototype out of the seat of a wooden chair. He screwed nails into the back and added two black straps to carry it on his back. You were able to hang groceries on the back of it pretty nicely. He loved all things outdoors and thankfully documented a lot of his fun adventures on his YouTube channel which I'd like to share here. I have put the link to the channel below and I've included some of my favorite videos in a slide show.

Click Me To View His YT Channel

When he wasn't outside by himself, he was with his partner, Jessica. She brought him great joy and filled his time with love. When he writes about her he refers to her as his wife. I believe that they balanced each other perfectly because they both shared free spirits. My dad would talk about Jessica lovingly but also excitedly, like everyday was an adventure together. They made art and worked on crafts together, they travelled and spent time outside. Jessica gave a relief to the heavy sadness of solitude, and I believe they carried each others weights.

In any effect, my dad travelled both extremely light and extremely heavy. Although he did not own much, the few possessions he carried were like an attached appendage. These items shaped his identity, and I feel incredibly fortunate to now possess the things he holds dear. From photo albums and artwork to poems and expressive songs, these treasures date back to before my birth and provide a window into various phases of his life. I have compiled some objects he carried with him for over 20 years in the gallery below.

Need to add photos of rubix cube, black safe, photo albums, teeth jar, belt buckle, bandana, watch, special shirts, poems, journals

He carried these belongings as an extension of himself for decades; now, it is my turn to carry them for him.

His Passing

My father died on March 19, 2026 in the St. Paul Regions Hospital after about 14 days of waiting for him to wake up. I can hardly string together all of what I was thinking during this time, but I can remember promising him that if he woke up I would take him to Cabo, Mexico. I had been dreaming of Cabo in the weeks leading up to his accident. I have never been to Cabo but I knew I was there in my dreams.

We were given the opportunity to be with my father while he died. He was an organ donor, and I learned that organ donors go through different processes when they are dying. They told us they would remove his breathing tube, his feeding tube, various cords and things that went to his brain and he'd be given three hours to die. After three hours if the person is not dead, they can no longer donate their organs due to lack of oxygen. My mom and I sat with him for 120 minutes while he struggled to breath and survive. At this point any remnants of who my dad was, was gone, and to wipe the spit he's choking up from his mouth and watch him stare emotionlessly up at the ceiling was absolutely devastating. Unfortunately he lived through the 120 minutes, was unable to donate his organs, and died alone in the hospital about 4-6 hours later because I Ieft.

A fairly common theme throughout this experience was my swiftness in changing my mind on things I'd thought I had a strong standing on. I have come to realize that this is because my initial opinion was always rooted in a lack of information. When you have an organ donor on their death bed, the organ donation services will follow you more closely than the nurses and doctors do, and so when they came to me asking for his organs I was more taken aback than anything. Accident or not, being questioned as to what you would like done with your parents' organs while they are breathing next to you is very surreal. I nearly told them no, despite my father being registered as an organ donor. While in the hospital, it made me want to take action and remove my own donor status from my identification. I was thinking this is a grave situation, not to be pestered by mortal constructs like organ donation. I was thinking of myself, and how I don't want my dad to be separated from himself in death, I was thinking of the one life he had and the uniqueness of his own, personal autonomous body. Ultimately what made me change my mind was my fathers' wishes to be an organ donor, but I also asked myself, if the one thing my dad needed to survive was someone else's organ, I'd surely hope they'd give it up. For it is not selfish to not want to donate but is extremely selfish to then in turn obtain someone else's donated organ to save your life. I now believe all should be organ donors, and that if you are not an organ donor, you do not deserve to receive one. 

While they made a point to make themselves visible each and every day, I did appreciate the constant company and empathy that the donation services provided with their sweet and compassionate staff. They had a sense of urgency about them as all do in the hospital but they never failed to maintain patience and they offered me a lot of space. I also appreciated their awkward conversation and acknowledgements towards their own strange questions. Often, they would say "These are going to be weird questions, please understand we ask them out of obligation." At this point, any question they asked me was answered out of pure humanity and love. I saw my dad as a human and a friend more than anything else, so I was not answering awkward questions, I was just talking about my dad. I was just happy to be the one who had all the answers, the one who knows my dad more than his own parents and could advocate the best on his behalf.   

When my dad died I felt him. It felt like how it felt when he was lying unconscious in the hospital. Like he was still here but lost somewhere or searching for something. He visited me and my mom in our dreams for the first month and neither of us have had a dream about him since. When I dreamt of him the first time, I was looking out at him out on the front lawn through my grandparent's living room window. He had made Harley Davidson corn hole boards in his life and in my dream he had lined up over six of them next to each other. On top of the boards were large letters that spelled something out all together. They looked like those notes from a crime show where you cut out letters and numbers from different materials to create a sentence. He was smoking a cigarette and looking up at me as if to say he had worked hard and wanted me to read it. Now it feels like he has reached his destination and he can't talk to me so much anymore. When I dream of him, it's vivid and evokes powerful emotions from me while I sleep. If I dream of him, I wake up feeling as if I had just tensed my body and my brain for an hour and only now might I relax and attempt to recount what happened that made me feel that way. I dream of us hugging tightly as we always used to do, and I can feel the pressure of it, I can feel his oily cheek against mine and the bristles of his shaved beard scraping across my face. I can smell how he smells in a natural state. It fills me with longing and emptiness.

I feel the most pain both when I dream of him and when I want to reach out and can't. It is extremely heart wrenching to need my questions answered by my dad about himself and his future while he cannot provide one. I need my dad's guidance and his wisdom; I need him to tell me what to do. I feel as if my best friend, my world-transcending platonic soulmate, the one who knew me and loved me more than anyone ever will, has been ripped from me. It feels like a large void. He took with him part of me, for that part of me was him. In return I hope he feels me safely holding a large part of him here as well, wherever he may be..

I remember believing in a Christian God since I was in 5th or 6th grade. My dad and I lived with my grandparents and they raised everyone fairly religious. We went to church on all the major holidays and prayed before dinner. I attended church camp in the summertime in the same place we had our family reunion. I knew my dad did not believe and I had always been concerned about that. We sat down at the kitchen table one night and he answered my many questions regarding why. He told me that back in college, everyday on his way too school he would take the same, long route. One day while driving, he was thinking of what else there could be if not God. He said it felt like he had been driving on this windy road up a mountain for his whole life with a cake topper covering the mountain, and while pondering, the cake top came off. I remember thinking he had amazing points, but that the entire point of faith is that this is God's plan that you don't question, and it really scared me to think I knew my dad was going to hell. After years of that conversation's seed growing in my brain, as well as the realization that the fear of God's wrath is my only obstacle in curiosity, I am an atheist. I am not religious, and I don't believe in the Christian God, but still what remains is fear. I fear what comes after death is some form of eternal inferno. Textbook hell or not, to think of him suffering where no one can help him or hear him is hard to put to words. I have never been more curious as to what comes after death as I am now, and I can only hope it's anything but misery. Perhaps I fixate on that fear because he already endured a version of confinement while he was alive, but I'll always mourn the remainder of life stolen from him.

My dad was robbed of an entire lifetime by passing at the age he did. If you asked my father what his dream job was, he would tell you his dream was never to labor. My father only wanted to live without the obligations of the selfish heretics that lock the doors above him and profit from his tireless labor. I am certain he thought about this cycle often and how he would never get out of it. So, while I do not believe in life purpose, I do believe in some ways my father had completed a life-long mission of raising me, and maybe that was enough for the universe and enough for him. Certainly not enough for us here, and certainly not enough to be whole, but it makes me feel better about what he might've missed out on to think there was always a predetermined expiration date on his life or perhaps a goal to complete before passing. For this life is a game and a joke, not the gift it is so often made out to be. (I intend for that statement to read as realistic and self-aware rather than grim.)

I personally could die today happy, knowing I knew such a wonderful soul and was lucky enough for that soul to love me unconditionally, to know that I come from a family of empathetic listeners who value grace, charity, contribution and opinion, to know that my family is special in that each of us have the ability to put ourselves in another's shoes, to know my family and my father have enough common sense about them to question and challenge things. Knowing my father and my family truly makes my life worth it even if it were a minute long, I know my dad feels the same way. 

My father loved me more than anything and anyone, and I will compare every relationship and interaction to ours for the rest of my life. He did a number of things to show his devotion and love towards his only daughter. He made art for me in his free time, he collected my baby teeth in a small jar since I was a child, he had multiple photo books stuffed with photos of me and those he loved, he wrote poems about me and for me and mentioned me many times in his writings and musical raps and rhymes that date back to when I was born, he lives even when he does not want to for the sake of me, he mends bridges and relationships for the sake of me, he knew what I was talking about after I'd started a sentence with no context, he'd follow my thought patterns to get to where I was without asking any questions, he made me laugh and smile when he wanted to cry, he had my school photos wedged into his car dash, he came to every sports game, he wiped all my tears and healed on my wounds.

My dad understood me and my problems and my grievances like no other and treated them as the highest priority. Both my hardest and simplest problems were solved by my dad and he would drop anything he was doing to come rescue me. My dad wouldn't let me do anything I didn't want to do if I didn't have to do it. His protection, love and understanding are things I mourn the most.

Receiving his ashes was nice. It gave me a form of closure and a way to keep him close to me. He did not fit in the urn that my grandpa made for him, so the rest of him is in a large, plastic bag. My dad was over 6ft tall, of course he would not fit in his urn! I cannot bring my dad to Cabo, so when my mom booked a trip to Key West, Florida two months later, I knew I'd bring him with. For only now because my father is dead can he travel for free, and in he went with my swimsuits and sunscreen!

Ashes In The keys

The trip was wonderful and a nice break from the constants of work. I went with my cousin, my mom and her husband. We all did various excursions that my mom had booked like dolphin watching, snorkeling and jet skiing. We also ate out for almost every meal and I had some of the best food I've ever had. My diet was strictly shrimp, steak and key-lime pie coladas.

We did Bottomless Mimosas & Dolphin Watching on the 4th day. We were able to see dolphins in multiple places, multiple times throughout this excursion and the whole trip, which was really cool! Getting out on the ocean so much gave me plenty of opportunities to leave part of my dad there.

Bottomless Mimosas and Dolphin Watching

It started out as a bright and sunny day out on the ocean, and after about an hour it turned pretty gloomy and chilly. We are all maybe four mimosas in and I gain the confidence to take dad out of my bag. I had no intention of opening it, I just took him out and showed him the view for a few moments before tucking him back inside my bag. My mom was also four mimosas in and happy to see him! She hardly hesitated to ask the crew if we could pour some of his ashes overboard, and surprisingly they said yes. (It is illegal to dump the dead.) She is the only reason I was able to do that and I am grateful. We laughed about how the weather reflected my father's internal rain clouds, and I felt even if only in my thoughts, he was surely there that day.

Afterwards, the crew handed me a slip of paper, and on it they wrote the coordinates of where we poured him in the ocean. This was such a sweet gesture from them and reminded me of my dad's monumental empathy. It's also incredible to have such a physical landmark to look up and maybe one day re-visit. Although I dislike the idea of my dad being in multiple different areas of the world, I'd like to track all of the coordinates in the future if I do decide to leave a part of him wherever I go.

Click Me To View His Location

I'll take a moment to apologize to the tattoo artist who tattooed my dad's name and coordinates on my wrist, while I was throwing up my multiple, delicious mimosas. It keeps me up at night just as much as him I'm sure, but he was brave and so was I. This tattoo was done in the same font that my dad had some of his tattoos in.

I had a great time in the Keys with my family and I miss my dad very much. I count down the days till I can see him again.