Cancer and a Hurricane

As the winds of hurricane Sandy picked up speed on Oct. 29th  I received a call from my sister in California with the news that my father's doctor had given him a month to live.  He had been battling cancer since last fall.  I had just returned from visiting him only a week before.  I had baked him an apple pie.  We sat outside enjoying fall weather.  He was O.K.  Like all bad news, it really wasn't registering.  I blew cigarette smoke out the bathroom window while I talked to my sister on the phone.  Like a scene from a Wes Anderson movie, the hurricane winds blew the smoke right back into my face.  It was all starting to sink it.  The devastation from this hurricane was going to be massive.  It took me 4 days to get a flight out of NYC and what was waiting for me in California was a different kind of devastation.  The doctor that gave my dad a month to live turned out to be wrong.  My father died in less than a month on November 22nd.  It was Thanksgiving and one year to the date of his diagnosis.

Dad & sister's hand

last photo taken with my dad.