My 92-year-old father—a 'sassy' man who hates tyrants and laughs at death

Preparing my father for the end of life while making the most of the time we have

My father and I are very different people. He’s more pragmatic and level-headed—two government jobs, two pensions. I’m a risk-taker with a creative streak, which helps explain why I ended up on a shoestring budget with multiple gig jobs in Ukraine. Our personalities shaped our paths. Still, I inherited a few of his facial tics, some of his stubbornness, and an ironic, self-deprecating sense of humor that shows up in dark moments. I also picked up his disdain for authoritarianism and elitism in all forms.

A few of those shared traits were on full display when I visited last week to meet with him and his doctors. He’s 92, and his health has been slipping. We were supposed to have the “planning-for-end-of-life” talk, but first came the physical therapist.

He’d fallen the day before after an audacious (and, as it turned out, foolish) attempt to reach the bathroom without his walker, tearing the skin on his left elbow. “I’m never doing that again,” he said, and I hope he’s right. The PT wanted to be sure nothing else was injured and asked him to walk across the room. He refused. She insisted. He grabbed the walker and, with quick, short steps, zipped across—ignoring her plea to slow down. “So sassy,” she laughed as he flashed a mischievous grin. I laughed, too; my father really has gotten sassier in his old age.

Then came the hard part. Lauri, his nurse practitioner arrived and started the questions about if and when he would want to be resuscitated. In the past. when nurses asked me this question about my dad, I always said, “Yes, always do what you can to save him.” But when the questions were put directly to my father, he answered very differently. As always, pragmatic and level-headed.

I love this clip. This is a hard conversation, but his answers are so straightforward. And that laugh at the end! This is my dad.

After we finished that series of questions, my dad raised his hand and said, “I do have something I worry about.”

“Yes? Go ahead,” Lauri replied.

I tensed up, sensing what was coming. He wouldn’t, in front of medical staff, would he?

He looked at me. “Jared, when are you getting married?”

I groaned and stopped recording.

Six brutal months

Since fall, my father’s been ping-ponging between hospital and rehab. First, it was pneumonia. As soon as he got better, his assisted-living center jacked up the rent by $3,000 because he “needed more care.” He couldn’t afford it, so I had to move him—postponing a trip to see Ceci over the holidays.

Picture me in Kyiv, up at 3 a.m., fighting U.S. insurance and hospital phone trees while air-raid sirens wailed outside and drones buzzed. I felt powerless—failing my father, my daughter, Ukraine, maybe myself. I kept it together professionally, but personally, I was a mess. I was eventually able to negotiate an agreement with a new assisted-living center and coordinated his move from afar, draining my savings in the process.

Things got worse before they got better: two more hospitalizations, two more rehabs. His memory lapses grew. After losing my mom to progressive dementia, I’d avoided using that word for my dad, blaming simple old age. When a nurse casually said “baseline dementia,” it stung, but I accepted it.

I needed to be there—and it had been too long since I’d seen Ceci—but things were tight. Her mother, my ex-wife, Adriana, covered much of the cost of Ceci’s trip so she could see her grandfather and me. I’ll pay her back when I can. Family is family, and I am proud of the one I have.

After the conversation with the nurse practitioner, my father will now see fewer specialists; she’ll handle as much as possible on-site. It’s hard for him to get around. He hates hospitals and fears nursing homes. We’ll do what we can to keep him out of them, opting for hospice if it comes to that.

Making the time count

When we visited, his spirits were high. Ceci and I made a good team: she had his walker ready as soon as I parked, guided him, asked questions that got him talking at the right moments. I handled bathroom trips and menus, speaking slowly and loudly, and looking at him so he could read my lips. Watching her care for him—she wants to be a doctor—made me proud.

On our last full day, we took him to one of his favorite spots—Coggshall Park in Fitchburg. We strolled the pond’s edge, its surface mirroring the pines across the water, found a bench, and asked whatever questions we could while the sun lasted.

Here, I asked my father why he was proud of us. I know that my father would say a lot more if he could. In the past, he would have talked about her studies and how smart she is. But here, in talking about why he is proud of Ceci and me, he focuses on the love between us as father and daughter. It’s a sweet moment.

He ends by talking about the photos he has of us. I added one of those AI-generated photo slideshows via Apple “memories” at the end to give a sense of what he’s referring to. Excuse the roughness of it—I’ll make my own someday, but this will have to do for now.

He was at his clearest and most cognizant when talking about his support for Ukraine.

And as anyone who has spoken to my father for more than 10 minutes will know, he also doesn’t like Donald Trump. He fears for democracy in the United States, and like many Americans, is concerned the country has become more of an oligarchy. Some people grow more conservative as they grow older, but with my father, it was the opposite. He’s a Bernie Sanders Democrat.

Back in Kyiv

Back in Kyiv now, after a 48-hour relay of flights, layovers, and trains, I keep replaying those last minutes on the bench: Dad staring out at the water; Ceci asking about his mother, about mine—trying to piece together stories of the relatives, of the women in our family she never met. I’ll help her fill in those blanks.

The next call could be another crisis, another scramble through online forms, another 3 a.m. insurance battle. That part won’t change. It’s life, and death. It’s America. What has changed is the weight of the distance. My family knows why I’m here; they support me, and I support them. And hearing my father talk about Ukraine, it’s never been clearer to me that I am my father’s son. Perhaps with age, if I’m lucky, I’ll grow sassier too.