Remembering my father.

I was 11 when my Dad went to the doctor complaining of a persistent cough. I came home from school one day in February and my aunt Eloise was there. Everybody was crying. They told me that he had cancer. This was 1965, and I'm not sure I knew what that meant other than he was very sick. I didn't cry then.

He had a couple of operations, they removed some of his lung, but there wasn't much else they could do then, no chemotherapy. He had been given six weeks. He had lung cancer, and my mother said that they didn't smoke much. But our house was filled with things they bought with Raleigh coupons. Smoking wasn't a bad thing back then.

He was home in bed resting, and I watched him fade away. He was a big man, tall, and he became emaciated as the disease ate him up. In a moment of lucidity he told me he wanted me to have the bows he made and his two guns. I still do.

My dad lasted six months, and I wish it had been six days. I never did cry until the funeral. I didn't know what they were saying but I became hysterical and my brother in law took me out of the church.

I remember my Dad as spending lots of time with us. He taught me to play Chess. Him and Mom played Canasta with another couple regularly. He worked around the house and often had my uncle Larry over to drink beer and fix things. He was a tool and die maker by trade and had many unusual contraptions in the garage. He made knives for Mom to use in the kitchen. He taught himself to make recurve bows from fiberglass, and shot an eleven-point deer with one. He was funny and sarcastic like my Mom. They got along great, even though he was Republican and she was Democrat, and he was German and she was Irish. We were the happy TV family, Mom and Dad and Sister and Brother until he died, and she never recovered, although she was terrific with me.

That's about all I remember, except for a few other little things. I wish he had seen my son. Take some time out to talk to your Dad today. You never know how much time you have.