Unfortunately, this trip was not for pleasure. My father passed away on June 12, shortly after his 91st birthday. He lived a whole lot longer than he probably should have, considering some of his health issues, but you’re never quite prepared for this. I flew to Greensburg the day before and arrived at the hospital around 10pm. He was resting peacefully, but he did open his eyes once and spoke what would be his last word: “Yep”. He passed away 2-1/2 hours later, with Sandi by his side. Micki came down and the three of us, along with Mom, planned his funeral. Angie and Scott were in Turkey about to board a cruise ship. Tony and Katherine were heading out west to visit Payton a couple of days later, so we pushed the funeral of until the 27th. Because of that, I went back home and then returned with Madeline and Dana. Everyone made it in, and it was a nice service and we had some laughs and great memories to share.

Greensburg, IN—Jun 2024

6/25/23—6/28/23

Dad was in the hospital for a bad fall in May. His spirits were great, though, and Sandi had some wonderful talks with him during her visits.

 

Scott and Angie were in Turkey on the 11th, and didn’t really know how bad Dad was. I did, so that’s why I took the earliest flight I could to get there. The day he passed, we all looked at our schedules and came up with the 27th as being the best. It still meant Scott & Angie would need to rearrange the end of their trip, but they had a nice vacation despite it all.

We flew in two days before the funeral and enjoyed the Wolter Bar and meeting Lilah.

The advantage of waiting a while for the funeral is that we were all able to chip in a little. We provided props for the service, like a CB radio and  a banana to represent Dad’s life when he used to drive a truck. We all found photos of when us kids were young, when our kids were young, and more recent years. Amanda even came down from Chicago with her father to attend the service.

The cemetery service was really nice, because there was a salute and flag presentation since Dad was in the service. There was a reception afterwards and Mom did well with all the visitors. Dana was amazed that her work sent flowers.

The next day, we spent some time with Mom before all heading to IND. Tony and Katherine joined us for a while having a drink and some great conversations.