Happy Father’s Day, Dad

Happy Father’s Day. To all fathers, everywhere. Thanks for putting up with your children, including me. While I didn’t know it then, I see it now. It couldn’t have been easy. 🙂

I’m especially grateful for this opportunity to wish my Dad a happy father’s day. Earlier this year, after falling and breaking some ribs, the doctors discovered an aneurysm. A big one. An unbearably long period of testing and discussion finally led to a full open-chest surgery. The surgery went well, but the coming out of anesthesia was more exciting than anyone had anticipated. A very long seizure event, the result of several small strokes, left my Dad in a coma for the next four days. Finally awake, barely, we went through several more days of delirium and hallucinations but no movement on the right side.

Nothing like a relaxing day of alligator chasing by speedboat in Belize when you’re 80+ years old

I should stop here and let you know that Dad is now recovering. Slowly, for sure, but from where we began, his recovery is nothing short of astounding. By the way, Dad will celebrate his 86th birthday in just a few weeks. He has some rerouted plumbing, a few artificial stents holding the aortic arch together, and chest scars that would have inspired Mary Shelley’s artistic creation, but he is here to celebrate the celebration season with us.

Yes, I said celebration season. We’ve just passed my Mom’s birthday and Mother’s Day, we’ll blink past my own natal day of non-remembrance, today is Father’s Day, and then, not by coincidence, we’ll celebrate my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary on the four score and sixth anniversary of my father’s birth. Oh, and there is the 4th of July somewhere in there as well. Last year, on their respective 80th and 85th birthdays, the cake reminisced back to the youthful days of old, that is, before I had arrived to start the aging process:

So Happy Father’s Day, Dad. You are loved and appreciated far beyond my poor power to express those feelings. My book, which you’ll soon see, is in part dedicated to you and Mom. Thanks for being my lifelong inspiration.