A lot of people claim to be my No. 1 fan — God bless them — but my true No. 1 fan left this world last week. My mother quietly stopped breathing last Tuesday, as she slept peacefully, holding my hand.
There are worse ways to go.
Pronounced "Patter-EE-koh"
E-mail: Just use my moniker Patterico, followed by the @ symbol, followed by gmail.com
Disclaimer: Simpsons avatar may resemble a younger Patterico...
The statements made on this web site reflect the personal opinions of the author. They are not made in any official capacity, and do not represent the opinions of the author's employer.
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | |||
Powered by WordPress.
It *should* go without saying that this is not a thread for criticism of Coulter. But I’ll say it anyway.
Any criticism whatsoever, mild or severe, express or implied, will be deleted. Offenders may be banned at my discretion.
Patterico (cc3b34) — 4/22/2009 @ 7:28 pmI dread the day that I have to deal with this, and pray my little angels long outlive their father.
JD (ae4db3) — 4/22/2009 @ 7:32 pmWhat JD said. I wasn’t able to hold either of my parents hands when they passed. My prayers are with the Coulter family.
Old Coot (ab8838) — 4/22/2009 @ 7:42 pmI lost my dad Friday – age 87. I saw him last on Tuesday in the hospice. Unlike Ann’s mother who battled her cancer for some time, he went downhill pretty fast from lung cancer after he was diagnosed in late January and never felt good again. We got to say goodbye but we had been hoping he had some time to still do some things and lead kind of a normal life for a while.
I could be happy for him now if I knew for sure where he stood with God, like Ann does about her parents. I can just hope.
Gerald A (adb85a) — 4/22/2009 @ 7:53 pmNicely done Ann.
daleyrocks (5d22c0) — 4/22/2009 @ 7:54 pmI’m so sorry for Coulter, and my condolences go out to her. My mother also died of ovarian cancer.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (0ea407) — 4/22/2009 @ 7:56 pmThat was a touching tribute. Thanks for linking it.
Anon (b0f193) — 4/22/2009 @ 8:04 pmMy mother has been fighting ovarian cancer for ten years now, starting with a Class IIIC situation. She doesn’t think she is anything special, either. I call it her “emotionally Amish”—she refuses to think of herself as exceptional.
My sister-in-law is also fighting this disease.
I was glad to see Ann Coulter’s fine eulogy. Rest assured that some people will write trash about her loss. I hope that none of those emotionally and ethically stunted people do so here.
The Tony Snow thing is much on my mind.
Anyway, Patterico, thank you for posting this. Ann Coulter is many things, good and bad (like anyone else who draws breath), but she is never a boring writer.
Eric Blair (ad3775) — 4/22/2009 @ 8:18 pmOld Coot, Gerald A, and Bradley Fikes—and anyone else who has lost a parent recently (including our host): many condolences.
Eric Blair (ad3775) — 4/22/2009 @ 8:19 pmI was holding my niece’s hand as she passed away from kidney cancer last July.It was the most heartbreaking moment of my life. My sincere condolences to Anne and her family.
Dr. Carlo Lombardi (ef2968) — 4/22/2009 @ 8:23 pmThank you, Eric, and best wishes for your mother and sister-in-law. May the force of monoclonal antibodies be with them.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (0ea407) — 4/22/2009 @ 8:24 pmIndeed. Look for an e-mail with more information on that.
Eric Blair (ad3775) — 4/22/2009 @ 8:25 pmGod is with Ann and her mother – prayers from Phoenix…
DaveinPhoenix (9b506a) — 4/22/2009 @ 8:35 pmThat was a beautiful eulogy. Ms. Coulter’s mother certainly set the bar high as an example of a successful mother: She was respected, loved, admired by, and cared for by her adult children. It’s lovely to know she is reunited with her husband and I hope that in the coming days when Ms. Coulter misses her mother so deeply, that she will find comfort in knowing her parents are once again, a couple.
Dana (d08a3a) — 4/22/2009 @ 8:36 pmMuch prayers and thoughts to all who have lost so much recently….
reff (ee9f7a) — 4/22/2009 @ 8:49 pmMuch prayers and thoughts to all who have lost so much recently….
reff (ee9f7a) — 4/22/2009 @ 8:49 pmMothers are special. Mine lived to within three months of her 103rd birthday, then died three weeks before 9/11 so all the kids got to to her funeral. Thoughtful to the end. Cindy’s mother spent her last six months with us last year and died quietly in our back bedroom.
She has my sympathy.
MIke K (2cf494) — 4/22/2009 @ 8:52 pmLet me add my condolences to Ann Coulter as well.
My father is currently living through the last months of his life. He was diagnosed late last year with inoperable pancreatic cancer.
I suspected that I would lose my parents some day. But no matter how well prepared for it, it’s always too soon.
EW1(SG) (e27928) — 4/22/2009 @ 8:53 pmMy condolences to Ms. Coulter.
My father died a few years ago, and I miss him every day. Then, late last year my mother was diagnosed with endometrial cancer.
She had surgery and, fortunately, it had not apparently spread. She declined any further treatment, simply because the doctor told her that her survival chances were about the same whether she had chemo and radiation or not.
And now, she’s back at work at 75, soldiering on. I know she will go on as long as she can, because that’s just the way she is. But, I think a large part of her wants to be with Dad, because she was with him so long in life.
We live with our parents such a short time, but we never forget the love and sacrifice they provide. And, if we’re fortunate, that’s what helps us to go on.
Ag80 (b19e67) — 4/22/2009 @ 9:19 pmEW1(SG): condolences. I followed Randy Pausch’s battle with that disease. It’s awful.
When I was a kid in Sunday school, there was a hymn we used to sing. I don’t know who wrote it, but it is old. It contains these lines, referring to the frailty of the human body:
Or words very much like that.
Eric Blair (ad3775) — 4/22/2009 @ 9:21 pmTo be sure, Ag80, not all parents are gems (though yours were, clearly).
But it takes being a parent to understand one’s own parents better.
Eric Blair (ad3775) — 4/22/2009 @ 9:23 pmOh, dear. Condolences to Ann and her loved ones.
Cara (b11809) — 4/22/2009 @ 9:44 pmDeep and sincere condolences to Ms. Coulter and her family.
On occasion or often, no matter when you think about it, the passing of a parent seems like a distant, inevitable day that never should dawn.
For years, when my father and I would go sailing together on sunny, summer Saturdays, he’d soon pop a cold bottle of Rolling Rock and after several were downed, inevitably begin to say to me, ‘You know, if anything ever happens to me first, take care of your mother. Take care of your mother.” You nod and agree, of course, and file it away in your youthful mind as something so distant in the future as to not muse over for decades.
My own father and I spent a nice morning 10 years ago chatting on the phone about the approach of Thanksgiving and a Pittsburgh Steelers game we were going to watch, albeit in separate cities; me in Los Angeles and he to the south. He mention a slight cough nagging him. The usual November cold we agreed. No big deal. We bid goodbye as kickoff neared and said we’d touch base that evening after the game. A few hours later a call came from my brother. With no fanfare, he stated matter-of-factly, “Dad’s dead.”
There it was. The sentence you wondered when and where would come, had arrived out of nowhere, over a telephone.
Stunned, I said in utter disbelief, “What are you talking about, I was just talking to him this morning. Not more than a few hours ago. He was fine.” The response, “Well, he’s dead on the floor in front of me. The paramedics have left. Police are finished up and the coroner is coming. Mom’s a mess.”
Within two hours I was there after racing down the 405, my mind’s eye alternating between the freeway and those summer sails decades earlier with echoes of ‘take care of your mother’ playing over and over in my head. And that was that.
The man had watched the Steeler game, got up from the sofa, walked the dog, came in the front door as my mother was literally placing his dinner on the table. He hung up the dog’s lead, said he was a little winded, walked into the bedroom and fell dead on the floor, dying, so said the paramedics, instantly.
My mother heard the thud. Made the 911 call. She has not slept in that bedroom since.
And when I walked in the house that evening, his dinner was still on the table, she sitting across from it at her place setting, teary and stunned. He had no history of heart problems. No previous strokes. He was fine. Until he just literally dropped dead, like being switched off, with no suffering. He was four months past his 70th birthday.
So deep, sincere sympathy to Ann Coulter for losing her mother, which can be especially hard on a daughter. Olbermann lost his mother last week as well.
It is the work of God that Ann was granted the gift to be there as she passed and to prepare. It’s a painful, fragment of time– a memory— that in years to come she will treasure. Just as I treasure a mundane phone call about a football game. And distant memories of summer sails.
We all share and dread this part of our lives and try to anticipate our reactions to events on that inevitable day. You can’t.
Better to make the most of the time you have with your parents if you can in your busy lives. And if any of you think of it tomorrow, for the hell of it, pick up the phone and call’em, just because. For one day, you wont be able to.. and will wish you could.
To the rest of you posting who have lost a parent long ago or recently, condolences as well. And oh yes, as I do… take care of your mother.
DCSCA (9d1bb3) — 4/22/2009 @ 9:54 pmLike Kenney Rodgers said in ‘The Gambler’ the best you can hope for is to break even in your sleep.
The big guy allows that only for those who got it right.
DayTrader (ea6549) — 4/22/2009 @ 11:21 pmMy dad died in 2005. I don’t know what’s worse. Him losing his presence in our lives, or thinking of not being there for my son when my turn comes. Right now I’m much more concerned about leaving my young man. I was one of those fortunate ones who managed to be there when my father left this world. Four years past, yet just like minutes ago when things like this remind you. Tomorrow will be a very productive day lived to the hilt.
allan (e91882) — 4/22/2009 @ 11:42 pmMy condolences to Patterico and Coulter. My mother passed a few years ago. We used to discuss politics pretty much daily via e-mail, pass links to each other, etc., so every day is a reminder of her absence.
Karl (3bf5f8) — 4/23/2009 @ 5:11 amallan, those are wise words. I continue to appreciate the content and style in which you post, incidentally. I raise my glass to your father, and your son, and you.
Karl, my condolences as well. And I appreciate your posts very much.
Eric Blair (ad3775) — 4/23/2009 @ 7:19 amHaving been fortunate enough to be with both of my parents as they slipped into the next existance, I can emphathize with Patterico as he held his mother’s hand. Ms. Coulter’s eulogy was well written and a tribute to motherhood.
GM Roper (85dcd7) — 4/23/2009 @ 9:35 amCondolences to those on the thread who have lost a parent or parents. Dad died in 1999 and I still miss him. Still taking care of Mom.
Comment by DCSCA — 4/22/2009 @ 9:54 pm
That was a nice post. Thank you.
no one you know (65b7aa) — 4/23/2009 @ 10:10 amHaving been fortunate enough to be with both of my parents as they slipped into the next existance, I can emphathize with Patterico as he held his mother’s hand.
Mom’s still around! Dad died in 2005, and I wasn’t there; I got a phone call. But I had been there at Thanksgiving (days before), which I’m normally not home for, and I feel lucky for that.
Patterico (cc3b34) — 4/23/2009 @ 10:37 amIt’s never easy to have a close, loved family member pass on. You wish the best for them, with a funeral or other final rites, and try to keep fond memories of when they were here. But even though their pain may end, the lost for those that remain is still painful. Particularly when they are close to you, and to others.
Best of wishes to the Coulter family in their time of grief.
Anon (f43943) — 4/23/2009 @ 2:42 pm