Yep I was just rambling on again about this road that I have to walk one more time, this lonely empty road that we all have to face, that we all have to find a way to deal with. It sure does not get any easier at all.

Well that day has come and passed as a dark veil softly falling across shadows of once was happier times. We sat quietly watching for body language, a look in his eyes, an unspoken word. But none was to be had at the moment of truth. There stood a man who would change three generations' lives with just one sentence. I looked to my sister for strength and she to me. I saw that uncertain stare of my brother not really wanting the words to be said but needing them just the same.

As the Doctor listened to the sounds of my father's heart and lungs, his eyes looking deep into the faces of us three, I could just feel the answers would not be found here in this hospital room but in our hearts. We hung on every sound as he spoke with words that had underlying meanings. "Frank," he said, "Go home. Live your life. Enjoy your time. Take walks. Watch your great grandchildren play. There will be no more treatments. I don't have the answers that you are seeking. There is no time frame, for I'm not God. No miracles in medicine, just hope and faith, and that's all I can give you and your family now."

I felt as if at any moment I would fall to my knees. I knew of the illness. I understood the words, but it had not forced its way into the pit of my soul until that moment, in that room, on that day. I knew it was real.

How fast the hours rush by, how you see people going about their everyday chores, never stopping to think "is this my last?" "Will I see him, her, them coming in this very morning?" "Did I make a difference just being here?"

Well, my father most certainly made a difference. He raised two children that were handed to him when he married our mother. He taught us to walk as tall as we could, to believe that life is a journey not a destiny and that every person we meet along the way will make a difference in our lives, and we will return it to each and one of them. To never use people on the way up, for we will see those same faces on the way down, but to drink every moment, forgive those who may not hear, forgive those who may not see and understand you can't always change everything.

The lessons we learn while we grow up stay with us for a lifetime. You see he made a big difference. This man was and always will be our dad.