Today would have been my father's 69th birthday.

[Aristus]

It's also my father-in-law's 73rd birthday.

My grandfather: dead at 70.
My father: dead 1 month shy of 69.
I'm starting to feel like I have to adjust my horizons a little...

[Left Is Write]

1. ....

:hug:

[miss_american_pie]

2. Hey...

:hug:

[elshiva]

3. Awww, honey. Sorry.

:hug: :loveya:

[LadyoftheRabbits]

4. I'm sorry...

:( :hug:

[rurallib]

5. Were any done in by habits like drinking or smoking?

My parents drank themselves to death at an early age.

[Aristus]

9. My grandfather smoked like a chimney, and died of lung cancer and incipient emphysema.

My Dad never smoked day in his life, rode the Seattle-To-Portland bike race every year, and went hiking in France and Switzerland every couple years. But he was a junk-food junkie. Don't know if that caused his pancreatic cancer (unlikely), but there was that, anyway...

Thank you for your kind words, everyone... :-) :grouphug:

[Arugula Latte]

6. My dad died a few weeks short of 68 ...

You always just take those 10 years for granted. "Of course my parent/s will live to be AT LEAST in their late 70s, at the minimum..." But, if anyone peruses the obits, you see that plenty of people die in their 60s, 50s, 40s and younger. :(

:hug:

[leftyclimber]

7. Naw, don't adjust. Just enjoy every minute you've got.

It's not the time, it's the quality. And you're quality, dude.

:hug:

[applegrove]

8. Hey they say that people will be living well into their 90s as improvements in

cancer treatment and drugs for heart disease improve in the years to come. Chin up. Take care of you.

[5thGenDemocrat]

10. I'm sorry and I understand

My dad died at 59 after three years in a coma following an operation to reattach the tips of two fingers he cut off in a shop accident. The operation itself, ironically enough, went swimmingly -- the blood flow was reestablished perfectly, but the anesthesiologist neglected to notice that the hose supplying oxygen had partially backed out of dad's throat and he went without oxygen for nine minutes.
Mom died at 63 of a heart attack. I'm 52 now, with three heart attacks of my own under the, um, tee shirt and so I have a pretty fatalistic view of life. A good friend of mine, who has no background in psychology whatsoever, keeps insisting I'm depressed -- but it isn't that.
It's more like Hunter Thompson said of Oscar Acosta's thinking he was destined to die at 33 and he was already 33 1/2. I just figure that there aren't that many days left on my calendar and, to the good, that makes me treasure each one more than I might otherwise.
So, you're right about adjusting the horizons -- I don't get mad about stuff that used to make me livid, and I don't hang out on websites as much as I used to (I have -- what? -- some 7000 posts here, maybe 200 of which I've posted in the last two years).
The cyberworld ain't real, by which I mean we're never going to meet in real life. Meanwhile, I still have flesh-and-blood friends -- men and women, gay and straight, old and young, Republican and Democrat, successful and not -- all of whom mean much more to me than the latest Republican "outrage," or the echoes of Rush Limbaugh talking out of his ass.
So take a deep breath and remember to smile. Life is one hell of a thrill ride and it's over all too fast.
Peace to you and to all of us.
John
Reminding you and everyone else I'm throwing one hell of a party here in Saginaw in two weeks and if you can make it, I'd love to meet you for real. Details are in the Michigan thread and we could all use a few more parties.

[Aristus]

11. Thank you, John.

That was a magnificent post. I'm very moved. I do have to say that I'm a happy person. They say that "you're as good as you feel". I don't know how that can counteract pancreatic cancer, but I do know my Dad was not a very happy man. He was enormously gifted, and dreadfully insecure. In his final days, he treated my mother so callously and cruelly I still tremble with anger on her behalf. And he had been divorced from her for over 25 years. He held grudges until the day he died and told me once to my face that he "didn't believe in unconditional love."

Is it normal for me to be doing this? The sorrow of his death is slowly fading, and now I'm remembering with bitterness what a bastard he could be sometimes. Is this a common reaction?

Anybody?

[Dammit Ann]

12. Yes, completely normal.

Do not beat yourself up about it. It will likely continue for a while. Grief is complicated. And people even after they die, had a life in which they were not perfect. My mother died when I was 19 and at the time, I wasn't even speaking to her because she was kind of a horrible person to me. Now, nearly twenty years later, I have mixed memories, good and bad and the peace that she probably understood. Because I see her in me everyday. And I would understand.

[5thGenDemocrat]

13. I can't speak directly to that

My father was a wonderful, handsome, hugely funny man. Every woman I've known who knew him thought he was enormously sexy (he looked like John Garfield and was, hands down, the funniest person I've ever known and also one of the smartest). Mom and he divorced after 23 years, simply because their orbits had diverged -- she wanted to discuss books and philosophy and great thoughts with her friends and he just wanted to go race dirt-trackers.
I'm pretty sure they still slept together on several occasions after the divorce -- it would surprise me more if they didn't. They adored each other long after they had little in common aside from their five children.
He had a temper. I once skipped (get this) 51 straight days of school (my older brother, concurrently, skipped 53) and he pulled off the belt and tanned both of our asses but good. But I never got hit for no reason (believe me, I gave him plenty of reasons) and I only saw him drunk once. He was a happy drunk at that.
You sound like you escaped from your dad's vices. I'm still trying to live up to mine's virtues. Channel your bitterness but put it in its place. Learn from it and succeed where he failed. Do what I do -- take each day and try to improve it and yourself and let the dead bury the dead. I think you're on your way and I'm pulling for you and me both.
John
After the divorce, by the way, my dad married Gloria -- a wonderful, large-breasted woman with a lusty soul who realized what a lucky woman she was. She cooked for him and screwed him regularly and kept him very, very happy right up to the day the doctor shut his lights off. Dad was a good guy -- I miss him dearly and hope to grow up to be just like him someday.

[Aristus]

14. I wanted to get misty-eyed at your post, but I'm laughing too hard!

The whole thing with Gloria. Classic! :rofl:

Your Dad sounded like he was one in a million. I wish I could have known him. And I really appreciate your kind words... :-)

[5thGenDemocrat]

15. There you go

Glad I could help.
John
Final note about Gloria: Her father was a major-league pitcher (Claral Lewis Gillenwater), who played in five games with the 1923 Chicago White Sox (won one, lost three -- and the win was a complete game shutout over the Boston Red Sox). She, in turn, was the 1949 Jitterbug Champion of Bay County, Michigan -- so you can just about picture what she looked like. In her fifties, she was still a magnificent beast and dad was a lucky guy (twice lucky, actually -- my mom was a hell of a catch, too).
Keep that smile and I'll see you around the ranch. All the best.