Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Dad


I started this blog with the intent to keep you all up to date on what is going on with our family. I had great intentions of doing just that. We were in the mists of planning a great family trip to DisneyWorld with my parents and sister, Paul and Jesse when we got devastating news that my dad had pancreatic cancer.
What a blow to our family to hear that this strong, wonderful man who had fought in Vietnam, survived several truck wrecks, battled and won one round of cancer, biked and swam daily was dying from this horrible disease. Of course, being the family that lives in denial, we thought he would be the one to beat it. It was caught early...he had just had a cancer scan the previous month so how could this BE! But, it was not the news we had hoped for. It was inoperable and so he chose to do chemo with the hope that it would at least shrink the tumor and buy him a little more time.
He tried to fight it, but cancer won and we lost him on August 3rd. Not a day goes by that we don't think of him and miss him terribly. He was the best daddy, papa and husband in the world. I know he wouldn't want us all sitting around depressed. He would want us out there enjoy the sunshine, taking a walk on the beach, living in the moment. So, that's what I am going to go do.