PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

by DaddyO 

I inherited from my Father some of the very best qualities. He also passed down some traits that I have had to work on daily to accept and come to terms with.

His personality spanned both ends of the spectrum. His vivid imagination as well as his unflinching stubborness is near legendary status. His unique flirtatious bravado was potent enough to land him my amazing Mother and set a twinkle in the eyes of nearly every woman he encountered.

His love for fun was so valuable as to endear my sister and I to him as a wonderful and entertaining Father.

Unfortunately his penchant for stubborness and unwillingness to change was dangerous enough to provoke estrangement from key members of his family, shorten his life (and argueably his quality of life), and was an influence in his divorce.

One thing's for sure, no one who met him ever forgot him. He is legacy personified. A person who influenced everyone he met.

And this is why he is my role model.

His miscues became lessons for me to learn by and his successes became qualities for me to emulate.

On the evening of September 24, 2012 he sustained a brain bleed. The cause is irrelevant; the doctors said something as minor as him sleeping on his pillow wrong may have caused it due to the high level of blood thinners in his system.

He started feeling bad (an almost daily occurance) and unknown to him, his head began filling with blood. After getting to the Veteran's Hospital ER, with help from his wonderful friend Eva, the brain bleed was determined. Due to the blood thinner medication he's on for his heart ailments, they had to wait for his blood to thicken in order to operate...we waited while his head filled with blood and threatened his brain functions.

At just after 4am this morning the operation began. The surgeons removed a portion of his skull to allow the blood to drain and give his brain room to move (they feared it was swollen). They were prepared to sew him back up with a third of his skull bone removed and kept on refrigeration for a later operation where they'd put it back in. Luckily his brain wasn't swollen bad enough and they were able to finish the operation just after 6:30am and reattach the bone plate to his skull. He is still recuperating and it is unknown to what degree he will recover...or if he will recover. It's a waiting game right now.

Keep him in your thoughts. And if my deist friends out there want to keep him in your prayers, that's okay too.

But whatever you do, please remember him as the clever and kind hearted man who, while sufferring through his own pain and loneliness, always had other people's laughter first on his mind.