My Person of the Year (which might make you cry)

So Barack Obama is Time’s Person of the Year. Hardly surprising. (RIDICULOUSLY exciting, but hardly surprising.) I was asked by a friend for a submission of my own Person of the Year and only one name came to mind. So this is what I wrote to make my case for my own, personal POTY nomination:

 

I’d have to say my Dad, the late, great Hank Goldwasser. Dad died last month, so he might not be eligible, not having made it to the end of 2008. But here’s why I picked him. Dad had metastatic thyroid cancer since 2003. That’s 5 years. And he lived every day of that with a positive outlook. He was serious when he told people that he planned to be faetured on the Today show when he truned 100. He was resolute that he was not going to let cancer beat him, and in the end, it didn’t. Dad died of a heart attack (or so says the Medical Examiner), which we believe may have been induced by the trial drug he was on. His best chance at beating this awful thing is what killed him in the end. But he added to the data set and gave his doctors and nurses so much more information to go on – information they can use to help even more cancer patients.

This is not to say that Dad din’t have his bad days. There were days when he came to dinner in his bathrobe, having just gotten up due to fatigue. He lost a lot of weight and had trouble keeping up his appetite. He was crabby and grouchy. But he got up every day, even if only for an hour. He traveled out of state to conferences to see friends and colleagues. He made sure he was there when we needed him. And he died the night before a 2-week cruise to Hawaii to celebrate my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary. If that’s not living every moment you’re given, I don’t know what is!

From the 300 or so people who attended his wake (and the 78 Mass cards we received!), it’s obvious that Dad touched many many lives in his time here on Earth. He loved deeply and laughed often and made people feel welcomed and listened to. He told terrible jokes and gave freely of his time and talents. He is sorely missed.

And it’s sad to say that I appreciate him so much now that he’s gone. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate him before, just that his absence is felt so very strongly. He was taken too soon, too young. But he left behind an indelible mark on the world.