It was good to find a thread like this. I've been looking for an excuse to mention more about my dad, who died in late October. He was a remarkable man, and my golfing buddy the past few years, after I returned to Miami to be closer to him after my mom died in 2008.
Dad had pulmonary fibrosis, a lung condition with no known cause, treatment or cure. Life expectancy from diagnosis is 2-5 years. I think I mentioned dad on this site about a year and a half ago, not long after he was put on oxygen. Dad wasn't going to let a portable tank stop him. I'll never forget our first trip to the course. He was perfectly capable of moving around minus oxygen, and I suspected he'd merely use the tank in the cart between shots. Instead, dad walked up there with the tank around his waist. I said, "What are you doing? " He replied, "Just watch." Dad shifted the tank from the front of his waist to the back as if he'd practiced it for decades. Then he smacked one down the middle. I looked at him with a coy smile. Dad responded with a big grin and said: "When you've got bananas...sell bananas."
That was his attitude throughout the struggle with pulmonary fibrosis. He only expressed atypical anger when his oxygen cable would get caught on something. At that point he became unnerved, longing for the days before oxygen, when he was "a normal person."
Dad was active and doing quite well, given the circumstances, and we were very hopeful of the full 5 years until dad caught acute pneumonia on a trip to see my sister in late August in North Carolina. Apparently it happened in a hotel room. Dad simply couldn't afford anything like that...no margin. He was hospitalized three times subsequently and never came close to regaining his prior baseline. Median life expectancy after contracting acute interstitial pneumonia is a month and a half. Dad lived just slightly longer than that. In his final week his oxygen demand was so great it was the highest the hospital could offer, set at 15 with a huge mask.
Our final round together was August 9th. Sadly, I don't remember much about it, other than I didn't play well. It was during the Olympics and we were watching that coverage together almost every night. But a week earlier on August 2nd dad holed out for eagle from 74 yards on a short par 4. I took some of his ashes there 5 days after he died and spread them, on the tee box and in the hole and as close as I could to the spot of the second shot. It was raining moderately, which was fine since there no golfers and gave me plenty of time, which I badly needed given the emotion. It helped that dad made that eagle on his new favorite hole. He came full circle since that course where we played his final year and a half was the same one -- under a different name -- where he first got a golf membership for the family, but primarily for me, during the 1970s.
Dad was home for a few weeks after the first hospitilzation. But he couldn't pretend to play golf. At one point he wanted to get me out there, while he rode along. But I wasn't sure he could handle it physically, and I wasn't certain that I could emotionally. I still haven't been able to play a round, or even visit the range, since his death. It's partially because of something he suggested to me a few days before his death, when we knew it was imminent. I told dad I wasn't going to sell his clubs. "Play a round with them," he said, a gleam in his eye and upbeat tone. I hadn't thought of that. I told dad I would play the first round with his clubs, which are old Cobras with TaylorMade Rescue Mids. After my mom died I hit a ceremonial opening tee shot with her driver.
Dad's last game of any sort was Mini Putt on his computer. He basically couldn't move those final days. Pulmonary fibrosis in its final stages ravages the system, one of the worst ways to die. If he moved even a moderate amount his oxygen reading plummeted to the low 70s, and bells went off on the machinery. But I set up the MacBook Pro on dad's lap and he played a couple of full rounds of Mini Putt. I took a video, knowing I'd treasure those moments. Even with his body all but failed dad still put every bit of concentration and pride into that game, and was frustrated at the diabolical greens on a couple of holes.
A couple of days before he died I was scrambling for any topic. We did many audio recordings, now priceless within the family. Years earlier we had enough foresight to make 8 hours worth of video tapes, dad describing his life while my sister and I interviewed him. I recommend that to everyone. On the final days I thought to ask dad who I should root for, going forward in golf. I knew who his favorites were, like Mickelson and Kuchar, so nothing surprised me until the end: "Michelle Wie...and the Irishman (Rory McIlroy). Most of all, I hope Tiger catches and passes Nicklaus. I want him to destroy that record."
Now that was shocking. Dad had never been much of a Tiger fan, and less so after the Thanksgiving incident. When we watched Doral together I'm not sure dad ever followed Tiger's group, even for one hole. But situational influence played a role, and dad was beyond irritated at some of the statements Nicklaus made leading toward November. It's a topic not welcome on this site so I'll steer clear, but it should be obvious what I'm referring to. Dad didn't mind the partisanship as much as lack of respect, Nicklaus refusing to even call someone by name, saying "that other guy."
So at the end my dad was viciously anti-Jack. And now I guess I'll pull for Tiger to get to 19, which wasn't exactly my plan, although I've always expected and predicted he would.
Finally, many thanks to the posters who found out about my dad's death and responded in threads on the ladies golf forum, or via personal message. It meant a lot. And particular appreciation to one poster who responded in the thread a year or so ago, saying his mother suffered from the same type of lung condition. He encouraged me to savor the remaining time with my dad, and to tell him he was a remarkable man, the term I'd used in the thread. I took your advice, many times over.
Edited by Awsi Dooger, 09 January 2013 - 07:21 PM.
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