As of roughly 1:14 pm on March 25, 2025 my father has died.

I wish I had a better way to break my silence but I don’t. Hadn’t been able to art in any manner for so long due to stress… and now this.

Dad had been doing a bit worse and worse but always insisted he’d feel better tomorrow, he didn’t need a doctor, it was FINE… mom and I, used to his stubbornness, humored him since it hadn’t been worth the fight before… then on March 8th I had to rush him from a show to an emergency medical center. He had a terrible bladder infection so bad they were worried it did damage to his kidneys.

He had to stay in the hospital over a week with mom staying with him while I tried to keep things going before he was finally released to a care center for recovery… “He is getting better”… I should have been suspicious the second I heard those words. All of my grandparents seemed to be getting better… before just dropping dead. I should have been wary, I should have been on guard…

And yet I let myself get caught off guard when after 5 PM Monday March 24 I got a call letting me know dad had stopped breathing. Turns out he’d had cardiac arrest without any warning and they couldn’t get him breathing again till hours later at a hospital… at which point it’d been so long that on the slim, slim, slim-to-impossible odds he ever did wake up? The brain damage would insure he wasn’t dad anymore… and till he died on his own he’d be on life support suffering convulsions…

So mom and I made the choice to pull the plug. He’d never been happy with his deteriorating quality of life since the stroke and had been just doing worse and worse so at least he can’t suffer anymore…

But that leaves mom & I behind. Mom is trying to set up the funeral arrangements…

As for me? I spent most of the time waiting for him to pass calling all his remaining customers and supplies to let them know the news and I’d be taking over the business going forward. I also have to get together the bills and figure out the taxes since dad always REFUSED to let anybody else do it… and it now falls to me. Mom isn’t working anymore, she was forced to retire… so I have to keep the business going, pay the bills, keep us surviving…

How do I feel? Fuck if I know… sick in the head and stomach, numb, empty and I try and plan what to do, happy dad doesn’t have to suffer anymore, hating myself for not doing something about this somehow… all stuff I don’t have the luxury of feeling right now.

Anyway sorry this is how I break my silence and I pray all of you are doing better than I.