| He married my mom, Pauline, where they had my sisters, Connie (1968) and Anna (1969)..then along came me (1979)... He was a very loving, strict, protective, & devoted father & husband. He had his first stroke in 1994...he had about 4 more in the next few years, which paralyzed his body, mind & speech. My mother worked hard to take care of him, which became extremely difficult, whereas he wouldn't cooperate. He had his last stroke January 1, 1999. We knew then that there was no way we could do it on our own anymore, so on January 7th, we admitted him to the nursing home. While in there, he'd apologize endlessly to us all for everything that he'd done he felt was wrong... he got to where he didn't know who I was half the time I'd go to visit him, it was hard, so I stopped going to see him as often. On February 15, 2001, we got the call they took him to the ER at the local hospital... I went in to see him, and he never said a word to me, he would just look at me like he KNEW.. I never said a word to him, and to this day I still regret that... I saw him seizure, have his heart attack, without a word, and a couple hours later he was pronounced. It was very hard for us all, we weren't really expecting it. We knew with the strokes and all, that he was in bad shape, but we had no idea that he was about to leave us. I couldn't accept it, and I still miss him very much. He was my hero! |
