Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day.   This is one of the last photographs of my parents taken together.  It was taken in 1994.    The next April my mother died.   She was a colon cancer survivor, but, she developed a secondary malignancy, cholangiocarcinoma.  Which is cancer of the bile duct.  It is very rare, just like Gerda to come up with something exotic.   The tumor was up near the liver and even though it was small, it was inoperable. 

My father was never happy after she died.  He would say he didn't know what she did all day and after she died He found out.  Said he didn't have time to do anything because he was now doing his work and her work.  He was the type of person who if something were not a problem he would make it a problem.   He worried about everything.   I learned from that:  Don't worry about things of which you have no control.  You can change things of which you do have control.  It took a long time for me to actually quit worrying, I still do today but not as much as before.  Just run on faith that it will work out. 

He died in 2004.   The young girl is my daughter Emily; she is now 26.   Emily looked at the pictures and said that you can tell my father is the same man who was in the earlier pictures.   Some people look the same from when they are young till they are old.  I miss them both.   Here is their wedding photo, 1942.