The author with her father before a home-cooked meal in Pittsboro, North Carolina, in June 2023.

Several years ago, my dad was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. The news was a shock. At 84 years old, Daddy had been dedicated to his physical health for decades. He played tennis twice a week, ate my mother’s low-fat meals, and spent lots of time outdoors on their organic vegetable farm.

But the diagnosis did explain the symptoms he’d been experiencing. He got out of breath more quickly. He had a cough that wouldn’t go away. And he’d lost so much weight, none of his old clothes fit — likely, the doctors said, because taking in less oxygen limited his exertion, thus lessening his appetite.

Pulmonary fibrosis is considered a progressive, terminal disease; there is no cure for the irreversible scarring of the lungs that occurs. But my dad told me not to dwell on that — and not, under any circumstances, to google it. All that mattered, he said, was that it wasn’t cancer.

“Maybe I will reverse it,” he mused, “and demonstrate that it’s reversible after all!”

He approached his diagnosis with his trademark jovial attitude, and I didn’t doubt the sincerity of his optimism, but I had a hard time feeling it myself. The pandemic had been raging for two years, and I couldn’t help but think my dad was one COVID infection away from life-threatening complications. I also found his new physical limitations hard to watch — the way he stopped to catch his breath, panting, after walking down the stairs; the rope from his tool shed now threaded through his belt loops to hold up his pants.

To slow the progression of the disease, the doctors issued a list of suggested life modifications, and my dad hated all of them. Stop mowing the hay fields? Stop heating the house with the wood stove? These activities had likely contributed to his lung scarring, doctors said, but they were also some of my dad’s greatest joys.

At first, he rebelled. He bought an air purifier to offset the wood stove’s impacts. He took to riding the tractor with a mask in his pocket, which he could pull out if anyone asked (none of us ever saw him wearing it).

The author's father making hay on his North Carolina farm in May 2024.

Eventually, my mom used a study linking wood stove use to lung cancer in women to persuade my dad to give up this one earthly pleasure for her sake. After that, he proved slightly more open to change.

When his doctor mentioned that alcohol often worsened a secondary medical condition he was dealing with, Daddy surprised everyone by quitting immediately. The bottle of bourbon I’d already chosen for his birthday sat on my shelf untouched.

My dad’s lifestyle choices were trending in the right direction, but there was still one big problem: his weight.

Daddy had once been 6 feet tall and 155 pounds. Now at 5 foot 8 and just 123 pounds, he weighed less than anyone else in the family. At lunch, he ate peanut butter smeared on a single slice of bread and claimed to be full. Mom pressed him to take second........

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