MY FATHER, BEFORE AND AFTER ME

John Ewald Herr: 14-Dec-1939 to 02-Jul-2009

Mom & Dad at John and Christines Wedding.

At Nana's house in New Jersey

This post is dedicated to my father. I have been thinking a great deal about my relationship with my him and while it has been loving and respectful, I feel I need to know more about him now, before he was a father and a husband. Of course I know many stories about his growing up, Military career and courtship with my mother but there is much more to learn, and now, document. Ultimately I would have fared better getting his history from him of course but that opportunity has past so I will rely on family and friends' input. Dad was a master story-teller, quick with a joke and a good listener as well (Unless he was watching TV, right Mom?!). In a way I feel I have failed him as a son, not knowing and understanding him as well as I should. I will try to right myself and share all I can about him with anyone who reads this. He is truly an extraordinary, ordinary man. So allow me to share some pictures and tell you a little about him.

I am sitting in the Hospice center at the Concord Regional Hospital with my family as our father passes from this life. He is being kept in a comfortable state and constantly surrounded by loved ones. To know my father is to know that this course of action is what he would have wanted. He understands the issues with quality of life and, like myself, would never have wanted to be kept alive in a vegetative state. So now, here we sit literally, waiting for him to pass and while I feel deep sadness and pain, I know it is what he wanted and we are all here to guide him into his next life. I hope for his sake he isn't a deer when he comes back!!

With all that is unravelling around us now, I will leave this for now and get into full swing as soon as possible.

Dad and Charlie

I'd like to say this was caused by static electricity but...

My High School graduation, 1985


Mom posted this on Facebook, she said it was taken at a Settlers Dance around 1964. What a great picture.

The Wedding of the Century!!

I am always amazed at photos from the past, they always look so classic.


So the big question is..... Did she smush cake in his face after the picture was taken???

Mom's side of the family, look at little Laura with the devious grin on her face!!

The Wedding Party.

The newly weds with Dad's parents.

More to come as soon as possible!

IMPERMANENCE

There is no place on earth where death cannot find us- even if we constantly twist our heads about in all directions as in a dubious and suspect land.... If there were any way of sheltering from death's blows- I am not the man to recoil from it....But it is madness to think you can succeed....
Men come and go and they trot and they dance, and never a word about death. All well and good. Yet when death does come- to them, their wives, their children, their friends- catching them unaware and unprepared, then what storms of passion overwhelm them, what cries, what fury, what despair!
To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us deprive death of its strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more often in mind than death.... We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere. To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.

SOGYAL RINPOCHE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sogyal_Rinpoche

A few other quotes on death & dying.......

MONTAIGNE


Death is a vast mystery, but there are two things that we can say about it: It is absolutly certain that we will die, and it is uncertain when or how we will die.



The continuous work of our life is to build death.


Kings and philosophers defecate, and so do ladies. (Not a quote about death, but interesting none the less!)