. . .

If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you. - Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch lost his battle with pancreatic cancer this morning. Tony Snow, my brother's college classmate, lost his battle with colon cancer just a few days ago. Two inspiring men in the prime of their lives and careers. Men who had so much to live for: courageous wives, young children just beginning their journeys to adulthood. Men who taught us so much about how to celebrate our last days of life . . .

Daddy had those same reasons for living . . . Someone somewhere once told me his wish was to live through that one summer. He did.

He was a man of few words, but even had he not been, I don't know that he, or we, would have found the words to say what needs to be said when you know you, or someone you love, have/has so little time left on this earth.

His world was a world before the stages of grief had been named, before talking about dying was a good thing to do. But, deep in memory, there are indelible pieces of that summer:

* watching him hold my daughter, his first grandchild, and knowing that, because he would not want us to remember his wasting frailty, I could hold that picture only in memory, only as long as I drew breath . . .

* listening to his stories, the weekend before his surgery--Grandpa saving him from the fire--stories about love never judging . . .

* holding my breath when he tried, the weekend before his surgery, to pour a life's wisdom about running a business into my so-confused brain (fortunately my mother had the clarity of vision, courage, and determination to build on his legacy) . . .

* knowing that he, on his one best weekend of that summer, watched as man first set foot on the moon . . .

* spending one last night in a chair in his hospital room and being welcomed, through his coma, with a veryslowmotion wink the next morning . . .

Many years later/ago, I dedicated my dissertation in this way:
to my father,
who nourished my dreams,
and my mother,
who gave me courage . . .

I would like to think that those three fine young men, fathers, nourishers of dreams in their children--Randy, Tony, and Jimmy--will find each other somewhere in that next world. What stories they could tell each other!

Bet Daddy will take a break from gigging for flounder to be in the bleachers in my hometown when Good Morning America visits next week!