Father's Day

To me when I think of Father's Day I think of Superman. I picture my Dad in the outfit here. I'll give you the condensed version.

My Dad had cancer. Round #2 to be exact of a different type of cancer. He fought hard to live. He spent the last 6 weeks of his life in a hospital fighting for his life. He even agreed to be put on a ventilator for "3 days only" to clear up his pneumonia. We postponed giving him his Father's day present by 2 days so that he wouldn't know how many days had passed. Ironic in hindsight...

As a family we were called in too many times to count in the middle of the night because "death is immanent". That phrase became important to us as a family because it meant that more than 2 people could be in the room with him in CICU. We needed to have a chaplain from the hospital come in and write up a special "contract" (as the staff called it) to outline exactly when and how long the family could be in the room with him. It also detailed the services that the hospital would provide to my Mom a pager (that worked inside the building) so we could get her to walk down to the cafeteria to eat, someone from PT to come up and make sure she got a massage 2x a week to help control her arthritis and other muscular issues since we couldn't get her to leave the hospital. The contract was signed by all 3 children, my Mom (who signed without knowing what it said because she was going to do what she wanted anyway at this point and didn't leave my Dad's side to participate in the negotiations), the Head Chaplain, the head of the nurses in this unit, the Head of Security and at least one of his many many doctors. We all (children) had to carry a copy with us and have one posted at the nurses station and in his room. We have always been a strong willed family.

So we gave him his Superman shirt and he would look up at it hanging in his room and roll his eyes at us because he thought we were nuts...but he smiled every time he looked at it.

And yes we buried our "suit and tie wearing" Dad in this T-shirt with the blue button down shirt slightly open to see the "S" bursting out!

My Dad changed. When I went to college I didn't really even like my Dad...he was mean. He got colon cancer my sophomore year in college and he changed. He called it his "reality check". He became a different person. This is the Dad I remember the most. He was the one that hugged me, told me he loved me and talked to me about God.

So when I think of Superman I think of my Dad. The 7 year anniversary of his death almost coincides with the release on Superman Return on the 28th.

I know Beau isn't trying to replace my Dad. He's not that type of man at all...It just makes me miss my Dad even more.

If my Dad was here Big Red either wouldn't be alive or he would have ample help to "pull his head out of his a$$" LOL

For more thoughts on my Dad you can check out Coffee's post it is titled Ok, the Father's Day post.