Happy Birthday Dad

My father passed away December 9th.

It took me this long to actually accept and write about it as I can’t help feel that he was cheated out of some of the best years of his life.

After coming to terms with my mother’s death, my father was starting to be very active in and about town. He he became president of the Pointe Claire Lawn Bowling Club, was an active member of the Air Canada Pionairs by helping publish their monthly newsletter and taking pictures at their events, and was passionately pursuing his portrait photography.

As a matter of fact, he was out at the Pionairs holiday party taking pictures and enjoying himself only a few days before he had a stroke.

No one knew.
No one suspected.

I arrived in Montreal for some pre-holiday spirit and to help my father get his Canadian Drone License, only to find him lying on the floor unable to call for help. Last I talked to him, he was healthy, cheerful, and energetic. We had some amazing plans set up and I was looking forward to spending some fun time together with him. But none of that came to be.

A week after I came to Montreal, my father died.
A week later we had his funeral.

Since then I’ve been going back and forth to Montreal trying to settle estate things with my brother. On the outside I put on a happy smile and kept focused with doing the tasks at hand. But on the inside I was lonely, sad, depressed. It’s been hard.

My wife and I had some great crazy plans in store for my father this year and today would have been an amazing birthday celebration. And even though we were planning to still do somethings by celebrating in spirit with him locally, another tragedy hit in that my wife’s father passed away this last week as well.

It has not been a good year for us so far. It really hasn’t.
But now the time for morning my father is passed as I need to be there to support my wife just as she has been supporting me through out all of this.

We shall see where everything leads, but for now, I just want to take this selfish moment and to say…

Happy Birthday Dad