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Ed Schroer was walking with some friends to a house party on a cold night last December when his cell phone rang. It was his mother calling from a Topeka hospital. She was with his dad, whose heart had started fibrillating — a quivering that precedes heart failure. She said the doctors were doing CPR and chest compressions and he needed to immediately drive to Topeka.

Schroer tried not to worry. His dad had been in and out of the hospital for a year. He always got better.

This time was different.

Schroer’s hopped into his brother’s green Ford got on the turnpike and sped 80 miles per hour back to Topeka.

It was 2 a.m. when he walked into St. Francis Health Center. The waiting room, dimly lit and reeking of cleaning supplies, was vacant except for Schroer, his mom and his brother, Mack. His other two brothers, John and Paul, weren’t answering their phones.

The hospital scene wasn’t new — but being there at that time of night was.

In 2006, Schroer’s dad had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, a degenerative neurological disease that causes tremors and difficulty with walking, coordination and movement.

His dad was 78 at the time.

Schroer was 15 — the youngest of four, too young to understand what the disease really meant. The effects of Parkinson’s weren’t obvious at that point. His dad was still able to practice law and manage his cow-calf operation every day.

Schroer’s dad had been a prominent trial lawyer in Topeka for more than 50 years. His dad had to leave his practice and start working from home in 2008. Instead of going to court, he gave advice to clients and other attorneys. When Schroer transferred from Highland Community College to the University in 2009, he decided to live at home on the family farm outside of Topeka and commute to class.

One reason for living at home was to help his dad, who had stopped practicing law altogether and sold his cattle herd because of his failing health. Schroer would commute to Lawrence — 28 miles each way — several days a week.

In addition to Parkinson’s, his dad had his bladder removed because of cancer.

A missing kidney caused multiple kidney infections. During one of his stays in the hospital, his dad contracted a highly resistant bacterial infection that was difficult to treat.

He would help his dad get in and out of bed and into his wheelchair. Some days, Schroer would feed his dad. Other days, he would change the sheets on his bed, bathe and clothe him. The family as a whole acted as an in-home nurse.

Schroer never questioned his decision to care for his dad, who was as old as most of his friends’ grandparents.

His dad had another family from a first marriage that ended in divorce. Schroer had four half-siblings. When his dad married his mom, the couple adopted three sons before Schroer was born. The family joked that they were far from normal. Helping take care of his dad just played into that.

Even when his dad first became sick and bedridden, he was still mentally alert in the beginning. Eventually, he developed slight dementia and was confused about where he was at times.

Back at the hospital that December night, the doctor escorted Schroer’s family to a smaller, private room.

“Oh, I don’t like the looks of this,” Schroer remembers his mom saying.

As Schroer, his mom and brother sat in the smaller room, the doctor crouched down and told his mom the compressions weren’t working — that it didn’t look like his dad would make it. Together the family returned to the hospital room where nurses surrounded his dad like bees in a hive. Two nurses were switching back and forth performing compressions. Another nurse hovered above his head pumping air into his lungs. The doctor stood there viewing the monitors. His dad’s chest was badly bruised, the product of nearly two hours of compressions.

Schroer started crying.

His mom asked Edward and his brother, Mack, what they thought should be done at that point. They held hands and said a family prayer. They then agreed to tell the nurses to stop compressions. But first they told his father goodbye and his mother closed his father’s eyes.

A few days later, more than 300 people filled the First Methodist Church in Topeka at the funeral. His father’s casket rested at the front of the church covered with red roses and sunflowers, his dad’s favorite flowers. Friends, family members and pastors took turns speaking about his dad. Schroer, a film studies major, played a 10-minute long memorial video about his father that he made.

Afterward, family and friends traveled to Pleasant Hill Cemetery for the burial. An American flag lay draped over the casket commemorating his service in the Army during the Korean War.

Nearly five months later, Schroer has come to terms with his dad’s death and can talk about his dad and his death without getting emotional. He says it’s because of his faith in God and he has had time to mentally prepare himself.

After all, his dad was 83. He knew that his dad lived a good, long life, but he still misses him. But, Schroer had the opportunity to spend 21 years with him and inherited his dad’s love of baseball.

His dad played AAA baseball and on the New York Yankees farm team when he was younger. The talent scout who recruited Joe DiMaggio also recruited his dad. His dad was the reason Schroer started playing baseball and eventually went to Highland Community College on a baseball scholarship as a left-handed pitcher as was his father.

Schroer still lives at the family home where he is constantly reminded of his dad. The leather chair where his dad would sit and watch CNN in is usually empty.

He says the family has become closer since his dad’s death.

This March, when federal student loan applications were due, the family was initially stymied by his father’s missing expertise. He was good at forms and also did most of the family taxes. Since the family’s taxes weren’t filed before March 1, Schroer was granted a deadline extension while his oldest brother filed the family’s taxes.

Medical and health-care bills and the expense of the funeral put extra stress on Schroer’s mom. Schroer felt obligated to help his family out by getting a job. Last semester he worked at the Ambler Memorial Student Recreation Center as a game monitor for intramural basketball games. Recently, Schroer took a different job working in a computer lab at the Art and Design School. He says the extra money lessens his mom’s financial burden.

Schroer is looking forward to having a “more normal” college experience next year. He plans to move out of the family home and live in a house near Allen Fieldhouse with his college friends. He’s only been to one KU basketball game — last year’s game against Missouri — so he looks forward to attending more. He wants to tailgate and go to football games.

He’s glad he was a good son and helped his dad, but the experience thrust him into adulthood for a year and a half. He looks forward to being a normal college kid during his senior year. The only thing not normal: when he walks down the hill at graduation, his father won’t be there.

Chris' story | Lindy's story | Ed's story

— Edited by Joel Petterson