Tuesday, April 07, 2009

3/4 of a century


My daddy is 75 today! Nobody ever thought he'd see this day after everything he went through a few years ago. He had a quad bybass surgery, congestive heart failure, had his gall bladder removed and before all that he had a shunt put in his head to relieve the fluid that was causing his balance issues. Then, of course, we had a lung cancer scare among other things. We also found out that at some point he had a heart attack. It was a scary few years. I saw the strongest man I knew grow weaker and weaker by the day until he couldn't even hold a cup up to his lips. It was heartbreaking and frustrating, to say the least. He spent a few months in a nursing home because there was nothing that the hospitals could do anymore and he was too weak to stay home. Trust me, we tried to have him at home. There were days I prayed harder than I had ever prayed for God to just take him. But either God didn't want him or he's really that stubborn because today he is healthy! He's not the man he was 10 years ago - he still has a hard time getting around, but from what he's gone through it's nothing short of a miracle.

So now every birthday is one more milestone and reminds me of how lucky I am to still have him to visit everyday. He might not be as strong as he once was, but he can still be stubborn, play jokes and piss you off to know end.

So Happy Birthday Dad.

He shares his birthday with his mother, too, who would have been 105 today. It's a double-special day because Grandma Rose is the only grandparent that I ever met and I'm named after her. She died in 1983.