By Fr. Justin Fulton
About five hours ago, my Dad passed away having an egg sandwich (which he made us so many times while growing up) and watching the Andy Griffith Show—which he taught us to love so much as well.
He was there with Mom in their living room. He was wearing a St. Robert Bellarmine medal and Our Lady’s Scapular. And he passed on the feast of St. Padre Pio who said to “Pray. Hope. And don’t worry.”
We knew it was coming.
Dad was exposed to Agent Orange while serving on the front as a United States Marine sergeant in the Vietnam War. For the last 25 years he fought valiantly against complications from that exposure. He contracted an aggressive form of diabetes in the 1990s and over the last 12 years he went through all of this due to his exposure of Agent Orange and other exposures during the Vietnam War:
- Ischemic brain strokes.
- Cognitive vascular dementia.
- Losing his job because of the above.
- Colon cancer.
- Numerous falls.
- A motorcycle accident that gave him a broken neck, broken shoulder blade, and six broken ribs.
- Four stents in his heart.
- Congestive heart failure.
- Complete hearing loss in one ear.
- Complete short term memory loss.
- A fall that separated a tendon from his quadriceps to his knee cap that didn’t allow him to walk freely anymore.
- Losing the ability to drive, feed himself, clothe himself, bathe himself, and the need for 24-hour care—which our Mom has done so heroically over the last years.
- Losing the ability to carry on a conversation.
- Anxiety and no more than three to five hours of sleep per night due to so many medications and toxins in his body.
- Kidney failure and three days/week of dialysis for the last four years of his life.
- A 95% blockage in a back heart vein and 70% blockage in a front stented vein of his heart in the last month of his earthly life which doctors could do nothing about given his feeble condition.
Yet all of the above was not a match for the power of the Sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church. Dad received his final confession, Anointing of the Sick, and Apostolic Pardon last week before he took his final breath on this earth.
Suffering and death lost its power because Jesus—Eternal Life—in the Sacraments touched my dad’s human nature and redeemed him. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a true “Message of Hope.”
Would you mind praying for Dad and Mom daily for the next year? We are awfully, awfully proud of them.
May God bless and keep you always.
Robert Francis Fulton, Dad.
B. 4/3/1948
D. 9/23/2020
