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Today, 7-15-07, is a difficult day for me.

It was just yesterday morning that my sister called and left the message. My wife and I were down enjoying our morning coffee on an outdoor patio which overlooks our community's small lake. Our golden retriever, Abby, was with us at our feet. Our world was at peace.

My sister was crying . . . dad had passed away in his sleep last night.

Mom and dad lived with my sister, there at her house located not far away in the Anaheim Hills of Southern California. They had moved there last year after having sold their condo in Las Vegas due to health issues. My sister and her husband had graciously added onto their house a separate living area for them.

Dad had just turned 82 the previous week and we were over to visit him then; and he seemed unusually quiet. I sensed he was greatly depressed with his life. He sat mostly silent in his recliner, his feet elevated for better circulation, an ugly oxygen tube coming round his face and into his nostrils. He kept dosing in and out of naps, taking little notice of what was going on about him. His body was only a shell of it's former self. I know this was constantly and greatly on his mind.

Dad recently had nearly died of congestive heart failure and was hospitalized in ICU for several days. He recovered well enough to be released, yet soon thereafter he fell and broke his leg. Back to emergency he went. It was touch and go through the surgery as to whether or not he would survive, and miraculously he did.

My wife, Ellen, and I were able to have a clear-headed talk with him during his hospitalization . . . A talk regarding things eternal. He clearly understood his choices and we believe we will see him again one day in heaven. We reminded him what a Godly women his own mother had been, that she would be there in heaven waiting to greet him.

Dad's early family history was a sad tragedy. His father committed suicide early in the depression-era years of the 1930's when dad was only ten years old. And it was some years later, shortly after his 16 year old sister hung herself, that he moved his own young family to California from Iowa to start over. He struggled with alcoholism and depression off and on through the years. Along the way, another uncle and niece also took their own lives. It's so difficult to understand why . . . they were never lacking in much of anything. We've heard that genetics may actually play a role in such personal tragedies. God only knows.

Just prior to his last release

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