Monday, March 22

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March 22, Monday - More blood - and an Xray. Al Mathis stopped, Marv and Bud sent flowers. Marie and Betty J. came up and paid for TV for me whenever I want it. Nice group of people I work with.

23 March, Tuesday - Surgery at 8 a.m. Everything that has ever happened to me has made me a better person in some way. Whatever happens today will be all right  do the same and be all right.

24 March, Wednesday - Not much good today. Bud and Marv came over and spent the day. Oodles of flowers from so many nice people. All my family has been up at least once.

There are few things that will make you feel more helpless than spending the day visiting someone you love while they're in the hospital recovering from major surgery. Mom lost her left breast and a major amount of chest tissue and lymph nodes to cancer.

Dad and I spent as much time as possible on the fifth floor with mom, and then we'd retreat to the coffee shop in the lobby to decompress.

At one point dad went out to the parking lot to smoke his pipe. I stayed inside and tried to do homework, but I was so distracted, I went to find him. He was sitting on the curb, sobbing. It was the first time I ever saw him cry.

I only saw him cry one more time - the day in September 1972 when I left home and moved to Colorado. It shook me to see him like that, and it's only recently that I have come to understand the depth of hopelessness and painful despair that causes emotions to spill out like that. For all his faults and myopic shortcomings, my dad truly loved my mom.