He had grown so weak he couldn’t feed himself, but when they came to take him away he latched on to the bed railing with a surprisingly strong grip and uttered, “No, no, no I don’t want to go.”
 
I made the mistake of prying his fingers free as the hospice transport team tried to lift him. I shouldn’t have done that. The family had gathered around him to comfort him for this last move, but I was preoccupied with efficiency and mistaken about his connection to reality. He was 90. He had dementia and, during those final weeks, he spoke a language none of us could understand. He had been confusing dreams with reality for some time. He saw the dead walking in his house. And, painfully for our mother, he occasionally mistook her for his mother. The team laid him back down and I tried another approach. I gently said to him, “Dad, it’s time to go. Grab my hand.”
 
He did. 
 
That was the moment he gave up and I wonder if he thought I betrayed him. A few weeks earlier, when I visited and greeted him with a “How are you doing Dad,” he replied, in a rare moment of lucidity, “I’m going to stay here until it’s time to go.”

Who could blame him?
 
He grew up during The Great Depression. His family was so poor it was forced to move numerous times. His younger brother attended six different elementary schools. How could you blame him for wanting to die in the home he built with his own hands for the love of his life and their seven children?
 
Dad not only built our house, he built the dormer and the garage, and he poured the driveway and sidewalks. I remember one day coming back from football practice and seeing him on his knees in the hot sun finishing the concrete for the garage floor. Sweat poured off his bare back and his pants were blood-stained by knees rubbed raw from the lime in the cement.
 
Dad never attended high school, but his lack of education did not squelch his desire to read and learn new skills. He read manuals and learned how to fix appliances, televisions, radios and cars. Once, he restored and repainted our Olds Delta 88 station wagon. He painted it fire-engine red. Not a bad color for a sports car, but for a wagon as long as a stretch limo, it wasn't the color any of us teenagers who had to drive it would have chosen.
 
He had lived in this home 55 years. He wanted four more days.
 
We couldn’t give him that. My mother was exhausted. He needed care 24/7 and she wanted him to be comfortable, pain-free and to die with the dignity he deserved for the life he lived. We took him to Hospice of Northwest Ohio. It was the right thing to do. When he slipped away, he was at peace and, because of the staff’s attention to his needs, my mother could pass on to them her role as primary caregiver and become his wife again. That was a good thing.
 
Before he slipped away, he recognized her and asked her to sit with him. When he passed, the hospice staff draped his body with the American flag and stood as he was wheeled out.
 
It was a display of honor for an honorable man, one who served his country, both in World War II and for eight years in the reserves. Dad was a Master Sergeant in the 771st Tank Brigade and fought in the Battle of the Bulge, helping to turn back Hitler's last great offensive. On January 6, 1945, while moving up to provide support to the front lines at Bastogne, the tank he was driving hit a land mine. The explosion left him with a concussion and permanent hearing loss. He was 24.
 
Dad received the Purple Heart for his injuries and was reassigned to an ordnance depot in Warmeriville, France where he met our mother. Four years later, he kept his promise to return and marry her.
 
Dad worked 30 years at Champion Spark Plug, many of them as a set-up-and-repair man. Once, when we were playing pool, I asked him why he never went back to school or changed careers.
 
What he said that night put into perspective how he saw his role in our family. He answered, "I had to take care of the nest."
 
That was his duty to his wife and his children. He met that obligation with dedication and passion. He built a stable home, in a safe neighborhood and paid for a good education for all seven of his children.
 
His example is his legacy for his family. He literally rose from a poor boy with one pair of ill-fitting pants and one pair of darned socks to a soldier who defended our country, a husband who kept his promises and a father who gave his children a better life.
 
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