Today is my late father’s 97th birthday.
He’s been gone now for almost nine years, his deathday is May 4.
I miss him every day.
I was his caregiver for about 15 years after he was my caregiver following my cancer surgery.
I have been working on his biography, from Heber Springs, Arkansas, to his naval service and the nuclear blasts at Bikini Atoll, to his farmworker time in California, to prison guard, to his months-long coma and near-miraculous recovery, and more. He has an interesting story that deserves to be told and remembered, if not for the world, at least for me and his family.
I have thousands of pictures of him to digitize, and multiple audio tapes of him to transcribe. I’ve been too busy with life to do so in the years since he passed to do much of this. Now it’s time as I’m not getting any younger and if I don’t tell his life story, nobody will.
Dad’s life is, in a way, my life as well. Telling the story of his life will help me tell my own life story.
#jtg