Some stuff happened this week.

That wonderfully descriptive sentence was used in order to keep the first sentence from being the following:

My dad died yesterday.

During the course of his illness I made the decision not to mention it in any posts, but seeing as how things have come to a close I feel as though now is as good a time as any to bring it up.

My dad was a comedian of sorts.  Not a stand-up or a writer, but just a guy who managed to find humor in places where you’d least expect it, and when for whatever reason it couldn’t be found, he’d create it.

He was the type of guy that I felt could do anything when I was growing up, and that no matter what problem I had his wisdom was absolute.

Naturally, the older I got I realized that wasn’t the case.  He wasn’t an all knowing master of philosophy, he didn’t have an solution to every problem, and we often butted heads.

…but he was still a funny guy.  A comedic prankster that sometimes took his jokes too far… scaring his friends in an abandoned building in the middle of the night into thinking there was a murder through the use of red wax… spiking food with milk of magnesia… faking his own death while hiking…

Again, I don’t think that everything he did was appropriate, but I doubt he ever performed a prank maliciously.

He just wanted to find humor anywhere, even in the most unexpected of places.

I’ll fast forward through the last handful of years as Alzheimer’s eroded his mind and instead bring you to the events of last night, where I saw him for the last time.

In an effort to spare the details, all I’ll say is that he was in a coma and hooked up to an oxygen machine.  He was already at a point of no return, and my sister, mother, and I were just there with him in what would according to the nursing staff be the last few hours of his life.

The buzz and whirr of the oxygen machine was quite loud, which was only noticed when it turned off.

Along with the lights.

The power had gone out.

The nurse in the room quickly bolted to fetch help and to see if there was an issue with the generator.  Apparently it would normally kick in immediately.

So we sat there, the only sound audible was the slightly labored breaths of my dad.

Some nurses came in and out during this time, and for roughly five minutes nothing happened.

“Should I say something?” I heard my sister say.

The lights finally turned on.

“He just stopped breathing.”

whrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

The oxygen pump came back to life.

During a five minute power outage, with people running around trying to get the generator up and running, my dad passed away.  He passed away literally seconds before the power came back.

My dad, he master of dark humor, would have loved it.

My mom and sister both said that he somehow made it happen, one final prank to give us all a morbid chuckle.

I’m of the much more rational opinion that the power outage was purely a coincidence, which I think my dad would have seen as funnier.

…I guess it goes without saying, but there won’t be a livestream this week.  I’ll see you guys next time.