My Dad

As you can see I haven't updated my blog since the birth of my nephew Austin. Most of you are aware that my father passed away March 4th only 2 short weeks after Austin was born.
The death of my father was very sudden. He had not been feeling great for a little while and he progressively got worse. It was to the point that he was very weak and out of breath. Like most men he waited too long to go to a Dr. Nagging and practilcally begging from his wife and daughter weren't enough to get him to go to the hospital. Luckily he had a good friend that was able to finally get him to go to emerg.
Friday February 23 Dad was admitted into the hospital right away. By Saturday they were talking about him being diabetic and having blood clots in his leg and lung. Sounds ok, not life threatening really - he was in the hospital afterall they would be able to treat him. Right?
Thursday March 1st - visit with the onocologist. You know what that means - Cancer. Dr. Kuruvilla, Mom's oncologist, was the one to give us the news. Dad had pancreatic cancer. Numerous tumours in his stomache. He talked about treatment, he mentioned quality of life, getting "things in order"...things like that. He was trying to break it to us gently. He knew there wasn't much time but he didn't want to come right out and say it...until I asked.
I followed him out into the hall and asked him "what are we talking here?" Again he didn't want to tell me. He just told me a few hours earlier that my mother's cancer had moved to her bones. How do you tell someone their father is dying too?? In the end he told me, "if there is anyone you think should be here, get them to come."
The one person I could think of was my father's friend Glenn - he was in Florida. And he came. He told my dad that he would be there to hang in there until he got there. And so he did. Glenn saw him on Saturday and by Sunday morning he was gone. He didn't even wait for us to get there. The hospital called at 9:30AM Sunday and less than an hour later they called to say he was gone. We didn't make it....

We had a service for him on March 9th. There were a lot of people there. It was overwhelming the number of people that attended my dad's memorial. It certainly wasn't surprising he was loved by alot of people and he knew a lot of people.
I said a eulogy at my father's service. Another day I will share that with you for those of you that missed it. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done but one that gave me the most peace. I had Jeff with me and my best friend Pauline standing by my side to help me get through it just as they have helped me get through life thus far. I couldn't have done it without them. My friend Joanne willed me on as she sat amongst the crowd. And in the end people didn't express their sympathies as much as tell me how proud they were of me and what courage I had. That's what I needed. I knew everyone was sorry and there are no words that anyone could say to make me feel better about my loss. Hearing people tell me they were proud of me - that made me feel better because that's what my dad would have said.