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On Thursday, one week ago, I received a phone call at work from my daughter. She was crying. Her cousin had just got off the phone with her.

“They’ve taken Paw Paw to the hospital,” my daughter sobbed.
“He’s had a stroke. They don’t think he will make it.”

Now, that was a phone call I had dreaded getting my entire adult life. I thought I had received that phone call over eight years ago. Mom had called crying. Dad had cancer. That was part of what made this phone call all the more sudden and surprising. How? My dad had come through cancer surgery, chemotherapy, and all the years of follow up without ever having been sick or losing his hair. The doctors were in constant disbelief at his stamina, strength, and lack of side effects through the whole ordeal.

My dad had continued working. He didn’t work, look, or act like an older man. He didn’t work because he had to. He worked because he loved it.

Two years ago, Dad had worked circles around me helping me roof my house. To the day he went to the hospital he was working with a friend installing gas lines and furnaces. He did the crawling under the houses and the digging. He was really in great shape.

Everyone believed he would live to be a hundred or more. He was the picture of health. He still looked like he was in his mid 50’s. I knew he would see my grand children marry.

So, I called my wife and told her the bad news. My dad and mom live almost 1200 miles to the east. We discussed it for a moment and decided to drop everything and get there as fast as we could.

At different times along the trip, someone would break down. We would all cry for a bit. When we arrived, early the next morning, I realized it was the first time in my life I wasn’t glad to see my home town. In fact, I hated it.

We went straight to the hospital.

My father was elevated in CCU with nothing attached except a heart and respiration monitor. My parents had long decided not to use anything to prolong the life and death struggle. But, you could see the new world we live in when the nurse promptly called for the neurosurgeon after I arrived. I’m sure they were needing to make sure I was on board with the decision to allow things to take their course. I comforted them with an affirmation of “whatever Dad and Mom wanted.”

Dad was so strong, as he lay there. I feared this could last months–even years. Evidently, the right side of his brain had suffered massive damage, but the left side was ok. He was able to squeeze my daughter’s hand when she asked, but he was basically comatose in every other way.

It was very tough seeing Dad that way. I’m very glad he suffered no pain throughout the whole thing.

The morning before his death, Dad ate breakfast with mom. He started slurring his words and losing control of his right side. He never even knew anything was happening when mom asked him. They took him to the hospital where he continued to lose cognitive levels, but never experienced any pain. A blood vessel had burst deep inside the right side of his brain. The neurosurgeon didn’t expect him to recover.

I asked them what would kill him. They said that pneumonia was most likely to end his life. There was a possibility he would begin to bleed again in his brain. This could cause him to lose respiration and heart beat.

The next day was a repeat of the first day. Many visitors and relatives dropped by. There was a small family clan that went in and out all day.

That evening, mom, I and my wife were returning to his room after the nurse had turned him and taken his temperature. The nurse wouldn’t tell us she knew he was dying. She said, “things are changing quickly now.”

I looked at the gages and instrument displays that had become easy to read the last two days. Dad’s respiration was 15 per minute. That was very low. It had been high in the 30’s and 40’s all day. Yes, 15 was very low.

As I watched, in the course of 2 minutes, Dad’s respiration rate kept going down. 15 per minute, 10 per minute, 8 per minute, 3 per minute, and finally, no respiration. I was surprised that his heart rate held steady at 49 beats per minute.

When he quit breathing, then his heart rate started to slow. 42 beats per minute, 30 beats per minute, and in less than two minutes, it started to lose its healthy pattern. It slowed to less then 20 beats per minute, and then just rippled where it had been beating. Finally, that stopped too.

I had just watched my dad die. It was one of the toughest things I have ever had to do. My mom laid across him sobbing, “What will I do. What will I do without him.” We all cried again.

That very night, at home, mom had to answer the donor survey when they called. It made me a little angry as she spent 20 minutes telling them Dad wasn’t ever in prison, Dad had no sex diseases. . . Couldn’t they find that out earlier? Maybe not. Things can change. Still, I hated that part of it.

Well, I’m back home now. I just called my mom again tonight. She is as well as can be expected. Life goes on.

We were planning to visit for two weeks this summer. To see Dad and Mom. It’s hard to think I’ll never see my dad again. Life goes on.

Regards.

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• My wife loves antiques and Victorian furniture, I like modern furniture.
• My wife loves atmosphere at a restaurant. I like to see what I’m eating. It’s all about the food.
• My wife loves the site-seeing on a trip. I want to get where I’m going.
• My wife loves to see homes and interior design programs on TV–like HGTV. I like the History channel, the Learning channel, Sci-fi, and action movies.
• My wife loves a party: being social. I like quiet evenings alone.
• My wife drives the hottest Pontiac-Trans Am 2000 WS6 package. I drive a 1992 ranger pick-up.
• My wife works in at a Christian University. I supervise a fabrication shop [factory].

Yes. We have all the makings of a wonderful relationship marking a marriage that should last a long, long time.

Not according to online dating services.

Why do you suppose all these online dating services try to match up people with the same likes and hobbies? Hasn’t it been said forever that “opposites attract?”

It is my experience that there are some foundational elements in a relationship that have to be as identical as possible. But the rest of it is the spice of life, and variation is essential in the rest of it for sparks to fly.

What are the foundational elements?

Things like religion, child rearing, and fundamental concepts of right and wrong and of life style. If these don’t match, then the wrong kind of sparks will fly–believe me.

In fact, I have a rule of thumb for young people in a serious relationship: Multiply anything that bugs you, or you think is quarky about your partner, about 20 times or more. If you could deal with it at that level, then it passes the test.

So, keep life interesting with someone that intrigues you. But keep life stable with someone that has the same concrete in their foundation.

Regards.

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A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun threadbare suit, stepped off the train in Boston, and walked timidly without an appointment into the Harvard University President’s outer office.

The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks had no business at Harvard & probably didn’t even deserve to be in Cambridge. “We’d like to see the president,” the man said softly.

“He’ll be busy all day,” the secretary snapped.

“We’ll wait,” the lady replied.

For hours the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away. They didn’t, and the secretary grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president, even though it was a chore she always regretted. “Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they’ll leave,” she said to him!

He sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn’t have the time to spend with them, and he detested gingham dresses and homespun suits cluttering up his outer office.

The president, stern faced and with dignity, strutted toward the couple. The lady told him, “We had a son who attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus.”

The president wasn’t touched. He was shocked. “Madam,” he said, gruffly, “we can’t put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery.”
“Oh, no,” the lady explained quickly. “We don’t want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard.”

The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, then exclaimed, “A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard.”

For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. Maybe he could get rid of them now. The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, “Is that all it cost to start a university? Why don’t we just start our own?” Her husband nodded. The president’s face wilted in confusion and bewilderment.

Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the university that bears their name, Stanford University, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.

You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who they think can do nothing for them.

—- A TRUE STORY By Malcolm Forbes

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One of my co-workers is the sort of person that just loves to push your buttons. The more he sees that something aggravates someone, the more he jabs at it.

Even in the face of this, he’s really a very likable person. And he usually gets away with pressing peoples buttons because he is a fun person.

He’s an extremely intelligent person as well. He has a lot of abilities not found in just everyone.

He has a very strong opinion about most things. Especially things pertaining to work and how things should be done correctly.

This can really dig under a person’s skin. But, there isn’t a lot one can say when a stubborn person is right about something. Particularly when they’re right almost 100% of the time. This make him a person with a respected opinion even with his harsh delivery.

All this said, I’ve come to the conclusion that a person is either stubborn or they are an idiot. While I would promote a friendlier declaration of an idea that helps people accept it, I still believe that you’re either stubborn or you are an idiot.

How so?

Mostly, even when the degrees between two choices aren’t that extreme, at the least one way of doing something would be a better choice over another. And in other choices, there is an absolutely right way and a wrong way that is more pronounced.

So, for this discussion, even considering the less extreme choices, we’ll say that there is a right way and a wrong way.

Now, if you are doing something, and someone tells you it is wrong, you should be stubborn or you are an idiot.

Here’s why.

If you are doing something that you don’t think is right, and you’re still doing it, then you are an idiot.

If you are doing something that you know is right, and someone tells you it’s wrong, you should be stubborn about it—because you know it’s right. So until you are proven wrong, if you aren’t stubborn, then you aren’t even worth talking to. You’re a whimsical weenie with no backbone. Get a life.

Now, after you are proven wrong, that flips you to the other side. Then, you would be doing something you know is wrong, and you would be and idiot.

So, trust me in this.

You’re either stubborn, or you’re an idiot.

Regards.

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