Dax Shepard’s touching note to dying father reveals intimate details about Kristen Bell

Known for getting his start in the entertainment industry as an actor on Ashton Kutcher’s celebrity hidden camera series “Punk’d,” Dax Shepard isn’t the first guy we’d peg as the sweet, sensitive type. But a recent blog post (only his fourth post ever on his blog “Don’t Try”) shows a completely different side to the 38-year-old comedian, writer, and director.

Titled “My Father’s Horniness” (okay, he hasn’t totally broken his funnybone), the blog post recounts the final days of Shepard’s father, Dave Robert Shepard Sr., who died on December 31, 2012 of cancer at 62 years old in Detroit, Michigan.

Their relationship wasn’t close, Dave Sr. was an alcoholic and “a selfish asshole” according to Dax, but in his last months they patched things up with trips to the movies, restaurants, and tours of their old homes.

“It became one of the more beautiful experiences of my life,” Dax wrote.

Dax noticed things were worse when he returned home right before Christmas, when he could no longer uphold his favourite hobby - eating.

“I threw him in a wheelchair and rolled him through 20 degree weather to his favorite restaurant, where I watched him pick at his waffles and bacon. He couldn’t have had more than four bites over the course of an hour. It was a very clear signal to me that the end was near,” Dax wrote.

“I took him back to the hospital right around dinner time. They brought him a full meal, complete with dessert. He didn’t even touch the dessert. I never thought I’d see that. I had always imagined he would be chewing WHILE he died.”

The next day, Dave Sr. could no longer talk or sit up – but that’s when Dax’s fiancée Kristen Bell arrived to give him “one last thrill.”

“She had flown in from LA without any warning. It was a surprise. It was an amazing, incredible, perfectly timed surprise. She lifted her shirt up and he put his hand on her swollen stomach. He left it there for the better part of an hour. He was smiling from ear to ear, sitting contently, unable to put together a sentence, but still capable of connecting to the new family member we were creating,” Dax wrote, who made a pregnancy announcement with Bell last November.

“He wasn’t going to make it to the birth, but that didn’t get in the way of him meeting the new baby. It was an emotional and triumphant moment. One I will never forget. If I live to be a thousand, I will still be in debt to my wife for giving him that one last thrill.”

Though, really, his very last thrill would be sweet-talking a young nurse who was helping him relieve himself into a plastic jug.

As Dax explains,“I couldn’t believe my eyes. He could barely muster a ‘hello’ when I came in, and here he was waxing poetically to this 20-something stranger. As she walked away, he was smiling like a teenager behind the wheel of his first car.”

Since writing his story last Wednesday, the post has received over 3,100 comments and reblogs on Tumblr, and many more messages of condolences on Twitter, including some words of support from a few of his famous friends.

“This is so beautiful, Budge. Thank you. It makes me so happy to feel I can retroactively share this with you,” wrote actress Erika Christensen.

“this is so beautiful. Thanks for sharing. My heart goes out to you,” replied Angela Kinsey, known as Angela from “The Office.”

Comedian Tom Arnold also retweeted the moving blog entry. And Shepard has been actively replying to several responses on Twitter.

“Reading all of these beautiful responses has been overwhelming in the most glorious way. Thank you to everyone who read and shared back,” he posted last Thursday.

Shepard is currently starring in the TV series “Parenthood” and will star in 2014’s comedy “The Judge” opposite Robert Downey Jr. and Vera Farmiga.

Bell is due to give birth any moment now and is slated to work on the highly-anticipated “Veronic Mars” movie shortly afterwards.

While Dax’s father won’t be around to see any of these exciting events begin, at least Shepard is happy he completed one journey with his dad successfully.

“And so it was, that on December 30th or 31st, we made it pain-free and with grace into the end zone; a feat that, as I write this, overwhelms me with gratitude. Our first project together was a total success. My only regret is that we didn’t take on more together,” he wrote.