Fond memories on a father’s birthday

Last Saturday was Sept. 12. If my father were still alive, he would have celebrated his 97th birthday.

His mother, my grandmother, turned 97 years old a little over a month before she passed away.

My dad’s father lived to be 89, so it wouldn’t have been that unusual if dad had lived much longer than he did.

His brother who was the second to the youngest (dad was the youngest of five) lived to be 93.

Dad passed away 32 years ago years ago on Aug. 11. Lung cancer was the cause. He was 64, almost 65, still awfully young in today’s world and even then.

Doctors discovered a huge tumor in one of his lungs on May 4 of that year. Three months and one week to the day after that he passed away.

I remembering praying for dad’s recovery, that he would beat the cancer. At the same time, I prayed if that wasn’t going to be the case that he wouldn’t suffer for a long period.

While dad didn’t beat the cancer, my prayers were answered.

I believed strongly that in June my dad probably wasn’t going to make it and my wife Pat, daughter Meghan and I spent his last Father’s Day with him along with other family members.

At least for me, that was important. We knew it would be his last one.

I’ve been reflecting recently on dad and all the years I had with him.

When my wife and I visit about dad, she believes he was hardest on me, more so than on my younger brother or sister. She’s probably right.

Dad was a serious person and a disciplinarian. He was a very intelligent man, handling and coordinating several major projects for Southwestern Bell during his 30-plus year career.

He was involved in coaching my baseball teams from the time I was in second grade up through the first couple of years of high school, primarily during the spring and summer. Several of those he was the head coach.

I still have two trophies from teams he coached, one when we won a championship, the other when we placed third.

I played basketball through my freshman year of high school and he helped coach my grade school teams.

During most of my high school years, he was gone for long periods of time on projects I mentioned, so we didn’t get to spend as much time together as I would have liked.

Dad loved to hunt and I began going with him when I was 4 and kept doing it until he couldn’t.

He loved hunting quail the best and the three Brittany bird dogs he had while doing it.

I’m grateful I can still do it, carrying on some of those traditions.

As I’ve spent some time recently looking through old photos, reflecting and remembering him, I know in my heart he loved us and always did the best he could for all of us.

I still think about him every day and always will.