I´m so very sorry...my condolences to you and your family...

what slick said is right... perhaps it was not intended for you to see him in the end so you could remember him as the happy healthy person he once was and that memory is the one to remember...

when my grandparents (each on their own time) got ill and start going down the hill.. I kinda stopped seeing them.. many family members thought I was being a bad person and maybe I was in some way but I didn´t want to remember them looking that way,stuck in a bed, so sad, so helpless, so terminally ill.. and have that sad memory haunt me.. now I still remember them when they were full of joy and health and all those happy moments we had...

I think your father left knowing he was loved and that he would be remembered not as a sick person but as a full of life happy one and that even if you couldn´t be there in person you surely were there in spirit..