Irish\u2019s father died last Saturday. We\u2019ll drive from the mountains to the valley tomorrow, pick up her sons in Eugene, and then head to the Oregon coast where the service will be held the next day.<\/p>\n
So much for 2017 making up for last year.\u00a0The girl didn\u2019t have enough on her plate over the last six weeks? Parkinson\u2019s, losing her job over Thanksgiving, four days later the fall that nearly took her life and did take her eye? Surgery days before Christmas, and before the middle of January, her father dies.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know if I could have withstood all she’s been hammered with\u00a0over the last eight weeks, but not once, in the year we\u2019ve been together, have I heard her say, \u201cWhy me?\u201d Though she has sworn at times at how this\u00a0glorious adventure together keeps getting interrupted, she seems to have no sense of entitlement. On one of our earliest dates, she said \u201cWhy not me?\u201d with characteristic toughness, and a shrug.<\/p>\n
His death\u00a0was not sudden. He was 91, and needed oxygen to get from his chair to the dinner table. But the 6 a.m. phone call from her brother, informing Irish of her father\u2019s death, hit her hard. She was close to her dad. They talked by phone every Sunday, and snippets I could hear were full of gentleness, love and concern.<\/p>\n
I could also tell there wasn\u2019t a whole lot of time. For her birthday I surprised Irish with a trip down to southern California in November to spend a weekend with him. She\u2019d also wanted me to meet him, and him to meet me. I did not let my awful fear of commitment get in the way.<\/p>\n
When we met, her father was irascible, funny, frustrated and frustrating, gentle and appreciative, a lover of football and as far as I can tell, a true hero. I link to his obituary here<\/a>, because I think it\u2019s important for people to read about what America was, compared to how it seems today. I was humbled and grateful to share time with him.<\/p>\n Not a surprise. He\u2019s her dad.<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Irish\u2019s father died last Saturday. We\u2019ll drive from the mountains to the valley tomorrow, pick up her sons in Eugene, and then head to the Oregon coast where the service will be held the next day.<\/p>\n So much for 2017 making up for last year.\u00a0The girl didn\u2019t have enough on her plate over the last six weeks? Parkinson\u2019s, losing her job over Thanksgiving, four days later the fall that nearly took her life and did take her eye? Surgery days before Christmas, and before the middle of January, her father dies.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know if I could \u2026 Read more\u2026