I stayed up way too late the night of July 20-21st. I woke up to a text from my mom saying that my dad was going to the ER, and then another containing his vital signs. They weren’t good. Not at all good.
I took a lighting fast shower, tossed a few days of clothes in a bag, told my landlady I was leaving town and she’d have to wait for the rent that month, and left Portland. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, when I was coming back, and didn’t really care; the Universe (and a lot of clinical experience) was telling me that I needed to be in Idaho NOW. Fueled by Rockstar, adrenaline, and overpriced gasoline, I drove straight through and made it to Idaho in 11 hours.
My parents asked me to move home to care for my Dad that night; It took me about 2 seconds to say yes and start burning down my life in Portland via text Message. I quit 2 jobs and told friends I was leaving via texts and facebook posts. I wasn’t sure it was real.
I spent 3 days going back and forth between the ICU. Battered by complications from unvaccinated covid and the continual complications of, he wasn’t moving enough air in/out of his lungs to scrub the CO2 that builds up as a part of respiration. On top of that serious condition, his organs had been slowly failing and fluid was filling his abdomen up, requiring draining. On the evening of the 3rd day we got the news that my Dad’s condition was not improving; his CO2 levels were twice what a normal person should have and the damage to his organs mean that the fluid buildup would reoccur.
We all talked and my dad made the call to go home on Hospice so he could be comfortable. The doc told us it would be 2 weeks to 2 months. We all fell apart there in the ICU waiting room – first me, then my mom. I headed back for Portland the next day to pack my stuff; I made another 11 hour strait shot drive, stopping to fall apart somewhere on the shoulder of I-84 in the Blue Mountains. I got 4-5 hours of sleep when I returned to Portland, woke up, and started packing my life.
Tiffany came over to help pack….and be an expert shoulder to cry on as I fell apart some more. About 5 hours into packing, My mom called me to say “Get on a plane, things are not going well and I NEED you here”. I broke a little more and repacked my bag; Tiffany drove me to the airport and I flew home to Idaho once more.
Dad was home and doing pretty good–awake, alert, and mostly pain free. Hospice came in and got him set up with meds and supplies and all those things I had done hundreds of times for other people. For strangers. For people I saw 90 minutes out of a day 1-2 times a week. For people who did not have the same last name I did.
Dad did pretty well for about a day and a half–sitting up in bed, laughing, joking, seeing a parade of visitors. Then, as the CO2 built up, he got groggy and started having a hard tome staying awake and breathing easy. I started giving him meds to help him breathe easy and lessen any pain he had. I sat by his bedside, in chairs his mom had in her front room, and swabbed his lips with cold lemonade neighborhood kids brought him from their lemonade stand.
I kept a cool rag–something he liked when he felt rotten– on his forehead and gave him meds every few hours, shared memories from our lives, and held his hand. Late on the night of July 30th–sometime around 10 or 1030 pm– we shared a Dr Pepper. He sucked small sips of of the star shaped sponge above, I sipped from the tiny cans he liked. It was the last time he was awake or alert.
My mom spelled me at the bedside a little later, probably 1130 that night, and promised to wake me if anything changed. I went to grab a shower and make a snack, then looked in on them both before I crashed out. We’d had to move the beds–normally pushed together–apart so the nurses and CNAs could care for my Dad. Mom pushed the heads together so they formed a V. When I stuck my head in one last time, I saw this:
My mom woke me up about 345 that morning, saying that my Dad’s vitals were barely there. We sat with him for a while longer, talking, crying, laughing, reminiscing. We promised him it was OK to go, that things would be taken care of, and that we would miss him so. We told him to tell his brothers (stillborn before he was), parents, and grandparents hello for us. My sweet dad, my buddy, Stephen Paul Hovey passed away quietly in his bed at home with my mom and myself at his side at 0505 that day, 31 July 2026.
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When I got back to Portland prior to flying back, I’d dictated a goodbye letter to read to Dad when he was awake. I had my Mom read it to him so I did not miss lucidity while moving…….
Dear Dad,
When I came home to say goodbye to Grandpa I couldn’t really find the words to do a good job. I wanted to put a little bit more thought into that with you now that we have a little bit more time.
First, I want you to know that I have long ago forgiven you for some of the things that I think we both agree could have been done better when I was young. I don’t want you to worry about that at all. I know it loomed large on your mind, since you have mentioned it several times in the last few years.
Second, and most importantly I want to say thank you so much for how you did raise me because you played a huge part in the man that I’ve become. I think we both know that getting here wasn’t always the easiest, and that it took me far away from home, you, and mom. I think that distance has been the biggest regret that I have carried with me these years.
Difficulty aside, I want to thank you for showing me the value of hard work, teaching me how to do so many things that have enabled me to be very self-reliant and help others over the years as well. I want to thank you for showing me how to treat a partner – how to love and celebrate them, even if times get difficult. I want to thank you for inspiring a lifelong love of history, for the ability to tell stories and share information in an entertaining fashion, for a love – perhaps slightly irrational – of engineer paper, ballpoint pens, hours spent wandering Dusty bookstores, sparkling new magazine stands like Barnes & Noble, and the smell of old books.
Some of the most fond memories I have of time spent alone with you involved wandering through Barnes & Noble browsing the stacks of books or trips to Old bookstores way back in the time of the Country Club Mall. I also loved the hours that we have spent just driving around “bumming” in Idaho falls, stopping at gas stations to get beef jerky and road trips snacks, and even time fighting with old used cars that kept overheating.
I loved the father and son outings that we did, those early, bright, and hot Sundays when You, Grandpa, and I would meet at church functions or sit together dressed up and ready to take on the world. I love taking care of our home and yard together, even if I complained about having to do it in between Nintendo battles or other Saturday morning shenanigans.
I loved getting midday phone calls from you at work, especially if it got me the chance to break away and tell you about what I was doing while I thought about the hard work that you put in to make sure that we all had comfortable lives. I always hoped that I would be able to work just as hard to make my own life or that of my partners and chosen family and friends as comfortable as you did for us.
It may not have seemed like it, and I was never really good about letting you in on my feelings, but you’ve always been my biggest hero, from the time that I was old enough to remember up until the present day. Your pride in me and the things that I have accomplished and how far that I have come has meant so much – more than I know how to adequately describe.
Although it may be uncomfortable and will definitely bring tears and some intense emotions I am so honored that you asked me to take care of you. I wish my skills were a little bit more current, but I’m going to do everything that I can to make you dignified and comfortable as this transition plays out. I will try my best to make sure that you are comfortable and not in any pain especially at the end.
Please know that you will be deeply missed, and this world will be less with my buddy gone. I will remember you in the smell of fresh cut grass, old books, gas station snacks, afternoons spent lazing on the couch watching movies with friends and family, and (even though you might not believe it) the simple pleasure of a clean house on a weekend.
I am never going to forget the time that we had together and cannot wait when we get some more time, preferably with Grandma and Grandpa and Mom there too.
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I wrote a draft of an obituary for my mom to flesh out a bit more later that day, and then the talk I’d give at his Funeral later that week. I helped my mom with the business of dying–funeral arrangements, a casket, flowers, a cemetery plot. We said goodbye with laughter, tears, and more laughter. I spoke first, somehow keeping it together through most of the following remarks:
“One afternoon long ago, as I chatted with my dad about the ins and outs of working in home health and hospice, he asked if it was hard having the people I was caring for pass away. I explained that it was kind of hard, but I was glad I could bring them and their family members a little bit of peace and comfort. He got quiet for a moment and then told me “Well I hate to tell you this, but it seems like you have kind of a dead end job”.
My dad’s silly and at times irreverent sense of humor has been with me from my earliest memories, and has helped me get through hard times and some impossibly traumatic situations. His love of story telling and laughing about the varying absurdities of life is something we shared and that I will miss greatly.
My dad taught me many more things that have colored my personal life and professional experience, including how to care for or downright spoil a partner, to be self-reliant, maintain a home and a yard, the value of selfless service to others, how to communicate information in engaging and entertaining ways, and the simple pleasure of a clean,quiet home on a weekend morning.
I learned much more over the time we had together—even if the value wasn’t always apparent or if I wasn’t always ready for the lesson. These things included working hard, working to ensure workplaces or events were safe and well organized, how to relate to supervisors, care for subordinates, maintain a clean and organized workspace, how to communicate information humorously but matter-of-factly, and (sometimes) how to string together a few colorful words and phrases if things (or people) just weren’t working out.
I’m going to miss his wit and wisdom, our shared love of laughter and storytelling, stopping at gas stations to buy road trip snacks or jerky like a diabetic toddler with a credit card, riding around SE Idaho with no particular destination, the (perhaps irrational) love of engineer or graph paper and quality ballpoint pens, killing time on sunny afternoons watching silly movies and sci-fi shows, browsing old bookstores that smelled of old paper, and sharing bright mornings in a yard surrounded by the smell of freshly cut grass.”
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We laid my dad to rest a week later in a small country cemetery, far enough out of town to be quiet, but not far enough to be distant.
He’s on the path that he and I took the last time we went for a drive in the country. It’s not far from the little country library/post office that we stopped to take photos of an old AA gun/small town war memorial. He’s surrounded by fields and blue spruce trees, just like the HUGE one that used to live in my Grandpa Paul’s back yard, the one that provided so much shade for so many gatherings on so many summer days when I was a child.
You can read the Obituary here if you like.
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