Shallow Thoughts : tags : family

Family pictures: My father, the actor

I inherited a big pile of photo albums from my mother when she passed away, and when time permits, I've been scanning them in.

Today I scanned in some old photos of my father. He used to be an actor, before I was born, and there's a wonderful collection of shots I'd never seen before showing him in various roles and costumes.

What a marvelous find. I've only uploaded a few of them so far -- there's far more needing to be scanned -- but what I have is here: O. Raymond Peck, actor.

Patricia Peck, Requiescat in pace

I haven't been able to write much lately. I have a good excuse. I was helping my mom through the last stages of lung cancer. She died early Tuesday morning, October 9, 2012.

She was in hospice at home for the last six weeks, and Dave and I moved in to take care of her and try to make her last days more comfortable.

Hospice takes care of the drugs and medical equipment, so pain wasn't a problem (at least up until the end). But they aren't big on explaining anything, so figuring it all out was quite a learning experience for us.

I may write about that some day, but it's too hard now. It's not just losing a family member; it's who she was. Someone, I forget who, said once that I "won the mom lottery." It's true -- I couldn't have asked for a better mother. In school everybody wanted to trade moms with me. (I said no thanks.)

And some day I may write about all the things that were so great about her, and how much I appreciated her. But I'm not ready for that yet. I'm just glad I had the chance to tell her in person while she was still here. Some people don't get that chance. If there's someone in your life you really appreciate, tell them now. Just in case you don't get a chance later.

Anyway, Dave and I are back at home, trying to recover some sort of normalcy after more than a month of being full-time caregivers. I'll probably get back to posting tech tips and silly humor items soon. But for now:

Rest in peace, Mom. You were loved and appreciated, and I wish I could have had a lot longer with you.