December 15, 1995. The day my dad died from the evil grips of cancer. He was a young 49 years old. He worked hard all his life and raised a wonderful family (me, my brother and sister) and sadly lost his battle after 3 months of chemo and radiation. He was diagnosed stage 4 cancer in September 1995 with lung, liver and bone cancer. He did the chemo and radiation for comfort purposes. We cherished each moment we had with him, especially after his diagnosis.
My dad loved to go fishing out at Bush wildlife ponds. He loved to go camping down in Lesterville MO at Riversedge campgrounds and Twin Rivers campgrounds. He loved to get his lawn chair and cooler and go sit in the river to watch the drunks float by to the smiley face. Riversedge was the stop sign b4 the smiley face on the Black River floating. We used to go canoeing many many times on that same river when I was a youngster. I loved going fishing with him too.
The night he died in our home we grew up in, neighbors, friends and family came over to our house and we built a bonfire in our backyard. Yes, in the City of St. Louis in Shaw neighborhood. He did not want us to grieve his death, but to party and have fun like he would have wanted us to at a regular party. Celebrate his life he had and remember the good times we had. We did that. In fact, the local police department officers we knew joined in with us at the bonfire.
A plaque My dad had hanging in the kitchen in our house over on Flad Ave read:
I'd rather be fishing.
I can see him now, perched back in his lawn chair, cooler of beer at his side, rod and reel in the river fishing for catfish while still watching the drunk floaters going down the river. I will always see him like this. Happy and enjoying his time of relaxation.
I love you dad and I still miss you so much. Julia will get to know you by pictures and your fun camping stories I will tell her. She will be proud of her paw-paw.
I'll try and scan a picture of him later and post it.
I FUCKING HATE CANCER
Saturday, December 15, 2007
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5 comments:
Becky,
I am with you. My mom is in the throws of stage IV Ovarian...(surgery last Tuesday).
I know the feelings now that cancer gives you - I hate it too....it's a sneaky life taker. I hated it before and now it's 1000x more. It's scary and life changing....hate it hate it!!
petunia, I am so sorry. As we get older, cancer is more prevalent. So many more we know. Sucks.
If you ever need to talk, email me. I can tell you that talking about it in therapy and with friends and family really helped us cope with his loss.
Aw, Bec, I'm so sorry for your loss. This will be a great post to share with Julia when she is older, to show her what a neat guy her Grandpa was.
I miss my daddy too. He lost his battle with cancer (6 months to the day after he was diagnosed with cancer) a little over 20 years ago.
I miss him more now then I have ever missed him. I think that the fact that he can't be here on earth to see my kids growing, and I just want to know what he thinks of them and is he proud of them, hurts more then anything.
I hate cancer, and all it has taken from those of us still here. I hate the smoking that caused his cancer in the first place.
I must share something DD told me the other day. I was saying something about missing her grandpa, and she said not to be sad. I asked her why and she told me not to be sad because he was in heaven with Jesus, and he wasn't sick with cancer anymore. You know if I could see things like a 4 1/2 year old does I think I would be doing better.
I'm so sorry for your loss.
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