Get a load of this...

Well here I am again - blogging.  Sometimes, when something happens in your life - you think to yourself, man I should write a book.  As if this has never happened to someone else.  I have been a single teenage mom, divorced, remarried, graduated from law school (as a single mom) dealt with infertility, dealt with addiction, lost a baby, and now I am an "advanced maternal age" mom - so all of these things I swear I could have written a book about but only because they all are things that have shaped me into who I am today....and,  Today I am embarking n a new chapter, I am losing my father to cancer and I have just finished my first week sitting by his side and it is hard.  He was diagnosed about 10 days ago with stage four colon, liver and lymphatic cancer - it is most likely also in his lungs.  We did not know about it until just now.  He was working full time up until about 10 days ago.  So I write, I am not sure where I am going because maybe this is about me, but maybe it is a bit about him, and maybe about my brother and certainly a bit about my mother.  It is a complicated  relationship and certainly a complicated journey and honestly I am NOT a writer, but as long as my mother in law doesn't read this I should be ok.  That is a little joke - she is a tad critical in the writing department.

This is my Poppy - he is my daddy and I am definitely his little girl.  This was taken about 2 months ago right after my youngest (and last - for those of you wondering) was born.  He is such an amazing grandfather.  He loves all of his grand babies so very much.  They just all have such a special place in his heart.

I will get to the title another day, but it is pretty funny.  Keep in mind I have a big Catholic family and I tell you this only because, well it will come into play.  Let me tell you a bit about Poppy - he is a big teddy bear.  He is about 6"5" - although he jokes he has lost a few inches over the years because of back surgeries.  He is absolutely known for his bad jokes and for...ahem... a special gift he has.  This gift is a very close relative of "pull my finger" which by the way is still going on even on his death bed this week.  A quick story to perhaps represent this gift.  When I was in high school, my boyfriend came to pick me and another friend of mine up to take us out one night and he brought one of our friends with him.  I was upstairs getting ready and the two guys were sitting downstairs at out little bar area talking with my father.  As I was descending into the bar area - I hear laughter and "Oh my God" and I look over at my sweet father as he is igniting his "gas" oh yes, he was.  I was in high school - I STILL hear about that even 20 something years later.  He was kind of famous for it and it was NOT a one time event.  He was still doing it when I was in law school.  I have to admit on some levels even I was impressed (when I was not mortified).  I just love him and now what I would give to have some of those days back.  I know that may be a strange way to introduce poppy and or open a blog, but that is poppy.  He was big and strong and really ALWAYS telling a joke.  I can not tell you how many times a day Poppy would call, JUST to tell me a joke and then he would hang up and call my brother and tell him the same joke or vice versa.  When Poppy got sick, he was not able to return to work and his request was that we go get his joke file out of his desk - so I did and let me just say it is a really big file.  This is a compilation of silly jokes he has been collecting since the late 70's.  Laughter is so important and I assure you he is still joking around.  He is feeling pretty yucky tonight, but somehow he manages to still muster a funny or two.  God, I am really going to miss that.