I've been at the stay at home dad thing for about 9 years now. My father recently passed away. He went into the hospital for what he thought was kidney stones and died 10 days later. Turns out, he had come in with a severe staph infection in his blood. His organs began shutting down one at a time until my mother had to finally tell the doctor to stop all the machines and medicine. He was only 73 years old.
I am having mixed emotions about his death. He was a workaholic who never spent much time with me when I was a kid. After he retired, we began to know each other little better. However, he still seemed to prefer his friends and hobbies. I have lived 400 miles away from him for the past 20 years and now wonder had I lived closer or visited more if things would have been different. My decision to be a SAHD strained our relationship. That is, he did not know what to talk to me about after I quit my job.
He will be creamated(sp) and my mother wants to keep the ashes in an urn on the mantle. My brother in law has volunteered to make an urn. At the funeral I found out that my dad spent alot of time teaching my brother in law wood working, something my dad was very good at. This is upsetting to me, because my dad never taught me any woodworking skills. Something I would have liked to learn. My sister and brother in law live 4 hours from my parents. So, I don't think location was the reason. I offered to buy my mother a professionally made urn. However, my sister has her convinced that dad would have wanted her husband to make it.
I don't hate my dad. He has always been very nice to me and took good care of my mother. However, I will always have this feeling that if I were not his son, I would not make the cut into his circle of close friends. I recall feeling this way long before becoming a SAHD. The SAHD thing just amplified the situation.
Ron
Joined: 2008-01-13
Dad Points: 21