*Walks in slowly with sad expression and lies down*
Hi Mr. Blog,
I'm cleaning my parent's stuff from my basement today.
I have tried every few years to do it.
But I would always start crying.
Seven year's ago mummy quit walking.
Pop put her in a nursing home with a cracker jack
rehabilitation center. He was so sure she would
recover and get going again.
Then he died.
My real dad was booted out when I was two
because he was a drunken wife-beater.
Lyle Durkin Sellards was everything I ever wanted
in a dad and more. He had fought his own demons
as a young dad and ended up divorced.
So mom and dad met and started dating in 1969.
Pam and I liked him right off the bat.
Strawberry had already moved out.
We had run off her boyfriends we didn't like for years.
But Lyle was perfect for mom and she was perfect for him.
When I got the call in early August of 2004
that he had been taken to Evergreen hospital,
in the middle of the night,
I freaked out.
I got called back at five AM that he was moved to Overlake.
So I zoomed down there while he was in surgery.
I knew he had a bad heart and
bad everything
from chain-smoking for fifty years.
Same as mom.
You smoke-
you lose.
The doctor came out and told me he had had surgery
and it was successful and he would be moved to the
recovery room in a few days.
They let me see him but I wish I hadn't.
He was everything I had ever wanted in a dad
since I was old enough to know what a dad was.
He was there.
He loved my mom.
That is all a good dad is.
There and loving the mommy.
I took Pam down when the day had gotten going.
The doctor said he would recover.
We went home.
He died that afternoon.
Another part of the heart blew out
and all the king's horses and all the king's men
couldn't put dad back together again.
So we cleaned out their house
and many boxes went to my basement.
It has been seven years Mr. Blog
and my new friend Gretchen is coming
to help me clean it out.
I dread it.
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