My Father

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So two weeks ago today I got a call from a friend of my parents that my father was in seriuos condition and I needed to come to Florida.

Of course I got there as fast as I could, which was about 20 hours later. My father had had some kind of an event where he had collapsed. Thankfully he was at the hospital at the time about to get a radiation treatment so they took him to the emergency room, admitted him to the hospital and put him in ICU.

After a couple of days there and a couple of more days in a regular hospital room, he was back at the rehab center where he has spent a lot of time over the past few months.

The good news is he appears to be on the road to recovery. Recovery for him will mean being able to go home. After all, he is 86 years old, and has a myriad of problems. Thankfully, his problems do not affect his mental capacity or more importantly, his sense of humor. He still has both.

More importantly, his problems don't affect his ability to love or be loved. He is truly a special person and I am not just saying that because he is my father. I am saying that because he truly is.

I think on of the most important things my sister and I were taught growing up was that no matter what, you always have your family. My father not only said that, he lived it. There were times when that philosophy was as stressed as it could possibly be. In spite of that, my father stayed true to his conviction that no matter what, you always have your family.

That is a large part of who I am today. I have certainly had moments of doubt in my life and been a big part of that stress, but my family is the most important thing to me, and no matter what I did to destroy that notion, I still had my family.

I am so glad that we have been able to include Shyanne as part of our family, as that is something she certainly didn't have with her biological family. My mother and father have also been supportive right from the start with Shyanne, and they definitely consider her a grandchild and a part of our family.

Shyanne is so much convinced of that, that when she was trying to guess someone in the family and I told her it was someone who was special to her, her first guess was my mother. It was not who I was thinking of at the time, but it shows how important her Nanny and Papa are to her.

I am so glad that Shyanne is a part of our family now so that she can love by that as well, and I am so glad that I am a part of the family I have. As my father said.......

No matter what, you always have family............

I don't know how my father did it......when I was a teenager he didn't know anything. He hasn't been to school since then, but boy did he get smart!!! :)

I Love you Dad

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