The peonies are especially beautiful this year.

It seems fitting, given that they are my dad’s favorite flower. He’s been through so much these last several months.

His health tanked. He had to move into long-term care. He’s been hospitalized several times. He lost his wife of nearly 61 years.

Maybe the peonies are showing off this spring in his honor. I’d like to think so, anyway.

A couple of weeks ago, I told him the peonies by the front door of his house were getting close to blooming.

“Cut me one,” he said.

He asks for very little these days. I couldn’t wait to bring him a bloom.

I waited until the magenta peony in my front flowerbed—one of several in my yard that originated in the yard of my childhood home—was flowering.

It’s his favorite color for a peony, and mine too.

I brought him a bloom early last week, and then several more on Friday. They look so pretty there on his bedside table at the nursing home—in the room he used to share with my mom.

By this time, though, they are almost more for me than him.

He’s getting close to the end of his life, I’m told. I hear this from the social worker, the grief counselor, the nurse practitioner, other members of his care team.

The signs are there. The decline has been steep the last few weeks.

I could see it coming, but it’s still hard to hear.

He’s my dad, my friend.

I don’t want him to die.

I share it with him on Friday—that the end is near, that he’ll be joining Mom in heaven soon. He’s not awake for long stretches of time very often, but I caught him at a good moment.

I asked him if he’s ready, more than once because I’m not sure he’s heard me.

When it finally came, his answer shows he heard, and he understood. Randy helps me see this when I relay the conversation to him.

My dad didn’t say no, which we would not have expected, or yes, which might have been the easiest response, given his weakened condition.

“I’m ready any time,” he says—which, when I think about it later, sounds exactly like him.

It could be days; it could be weeks. Only God knows.

All I know right now is that May 28—the day I’ll hit publish on this post—is my dad’s 86th birthday.

Honestly, I’m not sure how that fact relates to peonies and declining health and future waves of grief.

In my mind, it all ties together somehow. But this past weekend, I sat in the car—driving to and from Iowa for my nephew’s high-school graduation—and scratched out sentence after sentence written in an attempt to finish this post.

Maybe I’m having so much trouble because the ending—at least of my dad’s earthly story—has yet to be revealed. I guess that’s how life works; it’s only over when it’s over.

It’s only when it’s over that we’re able to gain a bit of perspective on how it ended.

Perhaps that’s why today, as I write about my dad’s birthday and think about his perspective on life, I’m not reflecting on scriptures about comfort and heaven. Instead, it’s the words of Psalm 118:24 that keep running through my mind.

“This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

♥ Lois

NOTE: This post is part of a collection called Help for Parent Loss. To read more, please click here.