‘God helped me forgive my dad’

After years of toxic behaviour, the relationship between Catherine Disher and her dad was strained. But in the moments leading up to his death, she witnessed God working in his life. What happened next astonished her

I hold my dad’s hands. In the past, these hands worked hard to provide for us; just as, in the early years, they also worked hard to form fists that struck our possessions and, on occasion, my mother, or us. The contradictions and ironies entangled with these deeply raw moments grow with each nonsensical word that passes his lips. Delirium has set in.

For most of his years on earth, Dad fought against life. He wanted to die. He attempted it several times, almost succeeding on a couple of occasions. He actually did die once, on an operating table, but was brought back to life.

Dad spoke about death multiple times a day, threatened it, flirted with it, dined with it, yet now that it has come to take him, he digs his heels in and, through the fever and intense but sparse conscious moments, he stubbornly fights to slow the process of his last hours on earth.