capri0mni | That call that finally came: Obit: my dad

This is the post I just put up at the mudcat forum, 'cause I just don't have the energy to type all this out twice:

I received a call from my cousin, Toni, this morning. Father passed away today at approximately 3:30 in the morning. He was just shy of 80 years old.

He has been... "battling" sounds wrong, in reference to him, so I'll say dealing with lung cancer for about a year. For the full saga, you can see this thread: BS: CapriUni's dad in hospital.

I have no brothers or sisters; my mother died 15 years ago, and my cousins are scattered to the four winds. So, really, he was the last close family I had, and it now falls to my lot to build a new family for myself.
received a call from my cousin, Toni, this morning. Father passed away today at approximately 3:30 in the morning. He was just shy of 80 years old.

He has been... "battling" sounds wrong, in reference to him, so I'll say dealing with lung cancer for about a year. For the full saga, you can see this thread: BS: CapriUni's dad in hospital.

I have no brothers or sisters; my mother died 15 years ago, and my cousins are scattered to the four winds. So, really, he was the last close family I had, and it now falls to my lot to build a new family for myself.

He was not a Mudcatter, nor, really, much of a lurker (he never developed the habit of websurfing), though he did enjoy hearing of musical tidbits I'd relate to him from this forum. When he was a young man in the navy, he went through an artic wilderness survival course, and during the portion of the course when he was alone for several days, he came to the realization that the only thing he'd really miss of human civilization, if he ended up being the last person on Earth, was music.

He loved dixieland jazz, and classical, and Odetta, and the better advertizing jingles.

I've been preparing myself for this day since he was diagnosed with cancer, back in January, so this news has not hit me like the body blow my mother's death did. But I'm still working out his life story in my head (after the signing of the legal papers, and all, I guess the next job I'll have to turn my mind to is writing his obituary for the local papers). It's a bit of a puzzle, since nearly all the people, besides him, that could help me pin down the details are also dead (he was the youngest of seven).

Sigh.