My Dad

We had to say goodbye this week to my dad, who went to heaven on Thursday. He was diagnosed four years ago with a rare blood disease and fought it very courageously. Dad touched many lives with his humor and positive outlook through this whole time.

My family laughed and cried together many times in the past few days remembering Dad and the time we had with him.

Seems everyone had a favorite tale. Here's mine---We vacationed in Colorado in 2006...Mom & Dad, Sanji's family, and my family. We drove up to St. Elmo to feed the chipmunks, then Dad asked if we wanted to take the same way back or if we'd rather take the scenic route.

Since I hadn't been on adventure with him for 20 years, I fell for it...I agreed to the scenic route. After traveling 20 feet down the road I realized my mistake, but it was impossible to back out or turn around. Dad took us down a jeep trail--Sanji in her new minivan, Mark driving our LaSabre.

Eight miles down the side of a mountain dodging ruts, washouts, and huge rocks that took two of us to drag out of the way. I was humiliated as we met person after person driving up the mountain in jeeps or on motorcycles, looking, pointing and laughing. I never noticed the scenery.

I kept reassuring myself that we'd think it was funny some day. How long that took depended on how much damage was done to our vehicles. I also assumed that Dad had just forgotten how bad that trail was. He probably hadn't been that way for years. Nope. When I asked Mom, she said he'd been down it in his jeep just two weeks before!

Love you, Dad. You're the best. We'll miss you.