In Memoriam...

I had posted a while back that I had started a prayer list (see the right hand column, about half way down) and shortly thereafter had a prayer request from Jason Torres for his father, Juan Torres. This is the final email I received last night:

"Good Evening,

I am writing you this evening to inform you of some very unfortunate news related to my father. Last Tuesday we received a call from the hospital at 3am saying that my father 'respiratory coded'. This means his lungs gave out and he wasn't breathing. The nurses immediately intubated him again and hooked him up to a machine to breathe for him. Given the week prior, my father was not feeling the best and the treatments were getting harder and harder for him. My wife, myself, my mother and my sister rushed to the hospital. We saw dad in the condition he was. We spoke with the doctors about his prognosis and it was not looking good. The previous day, he had a CT scan to see if the tumor was responding to treatments. The doctors read those results as soon as the Radiology department opened and the results showed the treatments were not working. The next step was to decide to contact my brother in Florida and have him fly into town and take dad off the respirator. We spent the whole day praying over dad and shedding many tears. In preparation for taking dad off the respirator, the doctors informed us he would not be alive much past an hour or two at the most. My brother arrived with some other extended family and we finished our goodbyes to dad.

Upon bringing dad off the ventilator and out of intubation, they took him off the sedatives as well. Dad woke up and coughed. The respiratory nurses worked to clear his mouth and throat. Immediately he said "I failed you guys." We said no you didn't dad, you fought until the end. We spent time praying the rosary and saying our goodbyes. However, dad was not ready to go yet. He stayed alive. Around 11pm, we decided to camp in his room. Dad was experiencing some dementia but he was still very much with us. The next day we 'express processed' his paperwork to bring him home with Hospice. By Thursday evening, dad was home with his signature glass of rum & coke, watching his favorite movie the Godfather and being with his family and his trusty dog Patches. That night, dad passed from this life to the next around 6:45am on Thursday July 30th.

I am writing you as the wake was yesterday and the funeral was today. We saw friends from dad's past and friends of today. Family that we haven't seen in some time and family that we see often. It was a couple days of remembering who my dad was and the values he passed onto those he met. Although my father will miss the birth of my first child and the growth of my new family, I know he is up in heaven watching over us and praying for us always.

My father was a devote Roman Catholic but he always had open arms for those who shared and loved in the Lord Jesus Christ. He was an active member in the Knights of Columbus in Chicago before we moved out to North Judson, IN. There was no chapter in our new town and my father worked to form a chapter there. He lived out the four degrees of the Knights of Columbus: Charity, Unity, Fraternity and Patriotism. He worked for years to establish a small scholarship through the Knights for our local high school and they finally did. They honored my father even further by renaming their scholarship the 'Juan C Torres' scholarship. He would have been honored by this.

In closing my family and I want to thank everyone for their continued prayers, kind words and gifts. My father was a very humble, honorable man and he asked me to not email anyone has he was sure there were more important people out there. I said 'Dad, all those articles we read in the newspapers and listen on the news about how the internet is impure and hurtful to God. I am proving those reports wrong right now, showing how the power of prayer can heal and comfort you."

The following link is the obituary information:

http://legacy.post-trib.com/obituaries/posttribune/obituary.aspx?n=juan-c-torres&pid=130730989

For those that are interested in sending something to my mother or to the whole family, here is my mother's address:

Cecilia Torres

5155 W 400 S

North Judson, IN 46385

Thank you very much for your time and attention through these difficult months my family experienced. We all sincerely appreciate it :-)

Jason Torres"

Please say prayers for his family. He sounds like a very nice man who will be sorely missed.

God Bless,