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.

What Your Dad On His 95th Birthday...If You Had The Chance?

Today, Dad would turn 95. 

And even though he never made it to even 50, it was 95 years ago today he was born. 

Maybe some of you have had the opportunity to ask your father questions on his 95th birthday. Perhaps some of you will have that chance, though not many fathers reach that milestone.

I wonder what I would ask my dad, if I could.

I'd want to know about his childhood. Growing up during the depression, he faced things we can't even imagine. It would be fascinating to hear it from a person who actually lived through it.

I don't know if he'd talk too much about this, but I'd so enjoy hearing about his time as a tail gunner during WWII--what it was really like. Each time I see a movie or read a story about the war, how I would love to hear what he went through. There's so few servicemen left--soon, we'll only have written down or recorded memories of history.

I'd ask my father about the time he was a policeman in Idaho in the 1950s, finding out how things were done, procedures, rules, what it was like being a cop.

I'd ask him about his education, finishing a four-year engineering degree in three.

I'd ask him about what it was like being a local judge and if making those type of decisions was tough.

Since I can't ask him these question, or even his wife--my mom--these things, I have to wonder what he might say. Perhaps it elevates his stature in my eyes--it certainly makes him even more intriguing.

For those of you out there who have their fathers still with them, what questions would you ask? What would you like to know? Some advice--ask them now, before they turn 95.