calherewecome

Today is the 50th anniversary of my father’s death. My brother Rich sent me a copy of a prayer card that he had been carrying in his wallet all these years. I had one word for him “Wow”. Rich, put that back in your wallet and bring it out ten years from today.

My father died of heart disease way before his time. Back then, they didn’t have any good treatments for heart attacks. My father had his first heart attack when he was about 56. He was in the hospital for a few days. He was sent home and told to rest. But that didn’t kill him. 

He was born in February of 1901 in Western Massachusetts. He married my mother on March 3, 1946. My guess is they waited until the end of WW2. Interesting bit of trivia. March 3 is also my birthday (2 years later).

In November of 1966, he went in to the hospital for gall bladder surgery. He survived that surgery but had complications, internal bleeding. So the surgeon scheduled another surgery to fix the leak(s). The second surgery did the trick, ie. it killed him. Cardiac arrest on the table. He was revived but never regained consciousness. He was on life support for about 6-8 weeks.

So I have already outlived my father by about 3 years so far. My Dad never got to see me graduate from college or get married. He never had the joy of meeting his grandchildren.

Sometimes I wonder whether I have my father’s genes or my mother’s. My mother lived to be 89. I’m hoping that I have my mother’s genes. Just sayin’.  Rest In Peace, Dad.

This entry was posted on January 6, 2017 at 4:38 pm and is filed under Dying, Family. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.