Elegy For My Father Who Is Not Dead

This poem reminded me of "Crossing the Bar". Rather than the speaker being optimistic and ready for death in this poem, it is the speakers father who is waiting to die. In this poem the speaker is hesitant and somewhat fearful about the "world after this world". The first question that came with the poem asked "Why does the speaker eligize his father if he is not dead?" I thought about this question the moment I read the title before I even read the poem. Automatically I assumed that the father was probably mentally unstable or changed in someway that his family did not recognize his personality. This came to my mind first, I think, because one of my friends grandpa had Alzheimer's. My friend hasn't visited him since he was diagnosed with the illness because he is afraid to see what he is like. My friend always says that his grandpa is dead to him. Now, this may be far from the cone of reason, but it's really the only explanation I could really think of to explain why someone would eligize another person who isn't actually dead. Basically, I feel like the speaker wrote this poem to express his fear of death in contrast to his father's calmness.