I spent a lot of time this past week and a half looking at photographs…looking for pictures for the visitation, looking for a picture for the death notice, and just looking to remember and share stories.

The most recent picture on my computer of Dad is one that I took at Thanksgiving a year ago. It was 4 days after the diagnosis that the cancer had returned and one day before his first chemotherapy treatment. He was in some pain, but doing all he could to not look like a person who had just been told that his cancer was back in a big way.

In the picture, Dad is in mid-statement. I have no idea what he was talking about. Like me, Dad liked to talk, and it could be on just about any subject. His left arm is reaching out, fingers splayed out like he was about to catch a ball…That was how Dad used to make a point, reaching out rotating that hand like he was turning a dial to indicate this option or that option in connection with the particular point being made.

It is a quintessential “Big Daddy” moment, one of thousands just like it from throughout my life. I’m not sure why I took the picture. I don’t recall being motivated by fear that what did happen would happen, but I’m glad the picture is there.

It is Dad at his wide-eyed best. Wide-eyed. That’s how I would describe Dad’s curiosity to understand…to understand just about anything. He was curious. O, don’t get me wrong. His was not a naïve curiosity. I don’t mean wide-eyed in that sense. Because at times he could be down-right jaded. A cynic burned by 40 years in the corporate world, Dad’s curiosity informed his opinions, but rarely changed them.

But particularly if it related to the natural world, or how a particular system or process worked, he was wide eyed with enthusiasm—to learn it, and then to explain it to anyone…at length….some might even say, ad nauseam. I’m like him that way. A lot. Ask anyone who knows me.

That’s why the last two days of Dad’s life were so painful, because, except for two hours on the morning of his last day, those wide eyes were replaced by wild ones. Eyes that were unsure, frightened, confused, delusional even. Those eyes, so he told me, saw a third arm on my body reaching around from behind my back and scratching my nose. They saw lights that weren’t there for the rest of us, strings hanging from the ceiling, and for almost an hour, saw the sanctuary of the congregation I serve 1100 miles away right there in his hospital room.

The doctors said that the dementia was chemically induced…a combination of the chemo, the blood thinners, beta blockers, and the dozens of other chemicals that roared through his veins.

They say that the ultimate cause of death was pneumonia. Perhaps, but I have a sneaking hunch that in feeling his sense of self and his sense of presence slip away again that day, a part of him decided to go along for the ride…not willing to stick around and just be a part of all of that anymore.

Or maybe he was just curious for what new understanding was just around the corner. Maybe he wanted to be wide-eyed again.