I am going to talk about adjusting to a sudden and dramatic change. In 1997, I — it was in the summer and I had four kids and left and a teah — I was a teacher, and I was just off for my summer vacation and we had lots of fun plans with the kids on fun stuff to do that summer and I got a call from my brother that my father was taken away in an ambulance from his backyard. A neighbor called the ambulance when they saw him go down. Now, this is my dad who was very very healthy his entire life. I never remember him being sick. He carried on no matter what and really there were very few times that he felt like he had to carry on. He was very lucky that way. So we all, of course, went to the hospital and it turned out that this very healthy man who had had a very healthy life at 76 years old had advanced cancer that probably started in his lungs but had now progressed rapidly to his brain. And he was no longer himself. He needed a lot of care, and because I — my — I have seven kids in the family, but two of my sisters lived in Colorado and my four brothers are local, but in 1997 and perhaps even today, the daughter is usually expected to be the caregiver. It was my pleasure to do so. It — it was the honor of my life to take care of him as he died.
And the only people it really screwed were my kids and my husband because I abruptly made the decision, I packed a bag, and moved in with my parents as soon as he was home from the hospital and basically lived there until he died, which was only six weeks. So that was actually another lucky thing. I was teasing him as I would read him to sleep, even though he really I don’t think knew, I’m sure he heard the sound of my voice, but I’m sure he couldn’t follow. But as I was teasing him about “I have to go back to school, dad,” “school starts in September,” and he died, like, August 18.