Yesterday my father left us.

He was doing fine. He had been completely off the ventilator on Monday and had done well. There were plans to transfer him to a vent rehab type facility in Ann Arbor. His spirits were OK. He was ready to try the transfer and the paperwork was in the works. Respirator therapy had planned two periods of being off the ventilator on Tuesday.

On Monday night when I said good-bye he asked if I would be there in the morning. I said I couldn't make it until the afternoon but that I would see him then. He said, "I hope so." Those words echoed a little in my mind and I hoped that something unexpected wasn't about to happen.

On Tuesday morning I got a call from the hospital saying they were performing CPR. By the time I got there he was gone. The nurse said, "Something sudden must have happened." He had talked to her ten minutes before. The doctor said he was "shocked." It was not that he wasn't really very ill. It's just that there were no indications he was near the end. His heart stopped. Perhaps it had reached its physical limit.

My daughter was at the hospital about 5 minutes after I arrived. We said the Chaplet of Divine Mercy and then the glorious mysterious of the rosary. My brother arrived shortly after that. We stayed for hours with him in the room. It was just hard to leave. I had sat there for so many days and I just didn't want to leave him.

I'll write more about this later. It's hard to write through the tears.

For those of you nearby.....His name is Richard Bailhe. Visitation is at Lynch & Sons in Troy, Michigan from 2 to 9 on Thursday. The funeral is at St. Thomas More Church in Troy at 10:00 on Friday. Thank you for keeping us in your prayers!!