Happy Birthday, Dad...And Belated Birthday, Mom

 Each year the odds of my parents being alive (had they not passed away years ago...) diminishes. Yes, thanks to advancements in medicine, nutrition, and over all knowledge about the human condition, people can live long lives. My parents lived longer than some, not as long as others.

Had my father survived cancer--diagnosed when he was forty-nine years old--he would have turned ninety-seven years old today.

97.

That's a long time.

Almost every part of the world has changed significantly since 1924. World Wars, technological innovations, standards of living improvements...I doubt my father would recognize my world. I know he would be in constant amazement by how far we've come, and shake his head at how we keep making the same mistakes. I miss my dad...I wish I had gotten to know him better.

A few days before Halloween, my mom, had she survived her cancer diagnosis, would have turned ninety this year.

90.

That's also a long time.

Mom lived into her seventies. Boy, she was a fighter. I blogged about my Halloween tradition of carving a pumpkin and setting it on her headstone, but on the day she would have turned ninety, I didn't mention it. I blogged about something else. I got to know my mother quite well in the almost forty-two years we had together. Even though I knew her better than my father, I still miss her terribly.

I love the picture of them camping together. Mom in a skirt and dad with a camera. That smile--he was in heaven, probably because my mother said something quirky. She was like that. They loved to camp, but they grew up in a different time, we think a simpler time, but they had issues and challenges, fears and dreams. 

Many times, I've wonder what it would be like to have my parents alive today. They'd be frail, probably not able to do many things they once did. Then again, there's a good chance they'd surprise me. Happy birthday, Dad and belated birthday, Mom. Hope you're having a grand time.