Thanks Dad!
You might have noticed that it was very quiet on this blog during the last months, nearly for a whole year.
Last year my dad was fighting lung cancer. It was an intense time, my parents live a 1 hour car ride away from me. So, beside family and work there was not much time left for blogging.
But I’m thankful that I got the chance to say Goodbye. I took this picture last summer when we said us everything that we wanted to say to each other:
In 2 hours we laughed and cried and then we took the picture above. We also talked about his funeral, and in all the upcoming months we knew, everything was said, and we can just talk about everything we want, including unimportant things like soccer. :)
When he passed away in November, my mother, my sister, and I were there, and I realized more than ever how much I love my dad.
My dad grew up in a small village where I grew up too. He lived his whole life in that village and he did a lot there. He was organizing carnival for children for more than 30 years, he was santa claus in kindergarten for more than 30 years, he was in the soccer club, musician club, fire brigade and more. He had amazing friendships that started when he was six years old and that lasted for his whole life.
All of this sounds amazing. But his own life and especially his childhood was never easy. His mother passed away when he was 9. And maybe that’s the origin where his talent started to grow, because there was always the huge wish of making a great team of a group of people. That team that was impossible anymore at home without his mother and other circumstances that happened at that time.
The team talent
I think my dad had a huge talent to build up a great team spirit. I noticed his talent already early in my life, for example when he was organizing carnival for children. It was always amazing, he was able to form a big team of all the children participating. During my whole life his talent popped up multiple times, and it seemed to me that his talent grew with his age. I remember especially the time when he had prostate cancer at the age of 58. He took a cure for 3 weeks with other cancer patients in the area where I live. He was leading a group of 50 people to a normal evening in a normal restaurant. The evening started with sad people. My dad started telling jokes and later they sung one song after the other. My dad knows many songs. The evening ended with laughing, singing and very happy people. Incredible happy people who forgot for an evening and some even for a few days about their cancer. My dad got letters from the friends he made there years later, where they thanked him for the great time they had while taking the cure, some even wrote it was the best time of their life.
But he never got the chance to use his talent in his job. He spent more than 40 years in a paper factory pushing some buttons on a machine to wrap huge paper rolls. No personnel responsibility, no team responsibility, just pushing some buttons on a kind of stupid machine. He did it to make a living.
We never had much money, and because of that also no computer at home. But my dad/parents gave me the most important things you can give to your kids: time and love.
Thanks dad, I hope what you believed in is true and you’re taking the chance to use your talent on the other side,
Thomas
Comments (9)
I’m so sorry to hear about your loss. He was a great dad and you’d be the greatest son and dad too.
Wish you all the best!
Thank you moonoo
I am truly sorry for your loss. Losing someone we love is nothing easy, i lost my dad last year, but knowing that we have been able to be a part of the life of that person, we can realize that we are blessed to have been able to share in his life before he went to rest in eternal salvation. He was a great dad and a truly loveable and kind person. After the tears have dried and the goodbyes have been said, all we have to hold onto are the happy memories that we’ve shared with our loved ones who have passed, this is what keeps them alive in our hearts and in our minds, and they will continue to live on, through us.
My condolences.
I’m sorry to hear that you lost your dad last year too. Thank you for your really nice words.
Thomas
[…] thought it’s by far a too expensive toy. My mother stayed at home with my sister and me and my father worked for more than 40 years in a factory, shift work. In all those 40 years, he didn’t miss a single work day, but the money he got […]
Thomas, cancer is easily (depending on its type and stage) reversible if you follow the raw alkaline diet. And this is because it is the only diet suitable for the human body. I consume daily 75% fruits and 25% veg in raw format. I will never have to worry about the common diseases in the future. I hope you will look into this and save yourself lots of trouble, agony and money in the future.
Thank you Konstantinos for sharing this. I read about this already a while ago, as I have a few vegan friends and as I’m vegetarian.
But as far as I know, there is no scientific proof and no evidence that an alkaline diet can reverse cancer, because it doesn’t change your blood pH, and all the research was done with a petri dish and not in a complex human body. So, while I believe that an alkaline diet is something good and can lead to a great health, I don’t believe it can protect you from cancer or even heal cancer, at least there’s no scientific proof for that. But I believe that eating less or no meat reduces the cancer risk, which happens also with alkaline diet.
The human body is a complex organism in a complex world. There are so many factors that influence our bodies, I think a diet is just one of many factors, but it’s maybe the one factor that we can influence most. So, it’s a good thing to eat good and healthy!
Cheers,
Thomas
God bless him.
Thank you!