I'll be missing you

20 years ago this month, my dad was diagnosed with inoperable colon cancer. He was asymptotic, in fact he thought he was having a heart attack from shoveling snow during a NJ storm. In reality it was the tumor pressing on his diaphragm. He wasn't old enough to get screened, lived a very healthy lifestyle and did all the right things concerning health.
He was given a shelf life of 2 years by the oncologists & specialists. He didn't live to see me get married or meet his grandson, who I know he'd love and teach him all about Monty Python & Dr Who.
He's been off the mortal plain for almost 18 years. I still want to pick up the phone & call him. I still find the perfect gifts for him each December. He'd love the popularity of Dr Who & Downton Abby.
I'm purple because I miss my dad.

A few years after my dad died, my beloved father in law was diagnosed with the very same colon cancer my dad had. His was caught earlier thanks to screening. He had surgery and treatment and was cancer free for several years. However, he passed away in 2004 after things metastasized. He, like my dad was an accountant. We are all numbers junkies! I loved going to Trenton Thunder games with him, and listening to The Big Man & he talking Yankees & politics. 

Funeral Blues by Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Cancer sucks.