My family

My wife's father is in the last few days of his life. He lives about 150 miles away from his family. His choice, not theirs. Not to elaborate or cause hard feelings, but he had an agenda for his life and pretty much stuck to it. The end phase of his life has given me the impetus to think about my parents and our lives together. Mum died in 2001 but Pops is still here, as my earlier post says. Our, my siblings and I, parents taught us a lot of things growing up. Most lessons were unspoken. They showed us how to love and be loved. It sounds corny until you realize that others never got that lesson and how much they missed. My father never blew off a day of work in his life. He had to be near death to stay home sick. In fact, I cant recall him being sick unless he was hospitalized. Otherwise, flu, colds or whatever, went to the mill with him. My Mum kissed me goodnite every night that I lived in her home. I lived in her home the first 6 months I was married, but I still got that kiss. I remember on special Friday nights when Dad would bring home an 8 cut plain pizza from Macko's. There were 4 of us in the house, but Mum would somehow always get full on one slice, so her youngest son could fill up with 3 slices. Probably pissed off my sister, but she was the youngest.

I guess we dont realize these things until it is way too late, but tonight I got to tell Pops what a great job they did showing us how to love each other. I guess one plus side to cancer is that you can be honest and not give a shit about what anyone else thinks. I hope my kids know how much I love them, because, just like I was raised, the word love wasnt spoken, love was shown. And I know my wife knows I how much I love her, because I always remind her. Just in case.

So, here I am being open about my feelings. I dont think I have ever let anyone peek behind the curtain, so this has been quite theraputic. Thanks for reading.