When I got up for the day on this Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend 2025, I went straight to Facebook to check what it brought up for my Memories. The first one to appear started with, “On this day five years ago, Pops passed away at St. Charles Hospital in Bend, Oregon, at 3:47 a.m. ” Tears quickly began to fall as I began to recall so many memories.
Pops was my caregiver during my battle with cancer, and I was his caregiver during multiple heart events, two knee replacements, and finally, cancer. When he passed, I shared his passing here on Facebook. To my surprise, several of my friends thought he had been my husband. He was not, but he was a part of my family’s story every day from May 24, 2001, up until he passed on May 24, 2019. In my Facebook announcement on the day he passed, I said I would find the strength someday to share the story about who he was and what he meant to my family. I shake my head when I think about the time that’s flown by since. Maybe, just maybe, this will be the year. Like my husband, he was a Vietnam veteran. He went to Vietnam before my husband, and the special operations he was involved in were classified. I found the documents supporting his war story in the CIA Reading Room online the year after he passed. Maybe this will be the year I finally finish that book project.