In Memorium, my father Pepe Mendez

My father died two months ago, on June 17, 2025. We were with him as he died in his own home, after a long battle with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

He was a good father. When I was growing up, he was a very busy man- even after coming home from work, he’d still do paperwork at home. Nonetheless he always made time for my sister and I. Some of my earliest memories are of him driving us around town, or teaching us how to fish or how to swim. When we were very young children he would read to us from children’s books every night.

The last few years have been a trial. His decline was slow and steady. During the Covid pandemic, he was able to talk and walk without a cane; we took our final family vacation that year, to the mountains of Colorado. As the months and years dragged on, we gradually lost him to the Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. I’ll spare you the unpleasant details, but to summarize he gradually lost the ability to clean himself, walk, feed himself, or even the ability to use a toilet. My mother and I cooperated, doing all of that for him for the last two to three years of his life.

My father spent his final eight months in hospice. He was completely bedbound, living at home, occasionally hallucinating long-dead family or horses which never existed. I don’t know if he spoke a complete sentence in his last month or two of life. Thankfully, the hospice provided excellent nurses to help take care of him. We couldn’t have done it without them.