After his service in the army my father was a tenant farmer. With a wife and 2 kids and barely getting by he went to med school on the GI bill. I was born 20 years later, 5th of 6 kids. He was a small town surgeon. I don't know what his last words were because I was still an hour out on a 7 hour drive home when he died. I left home for school when I got word he was on his death bed. He had bone marrow cancer. His spine and ribs had collapsed down and he could not breathe so he was on oxygen the last few months after an 8 year fight with the cancer. He was in the hospital the last week or so. The oxygen dried out his nasal passages and his nose was bleeding. The nurses couldn't get it to stop. He was telling them how to cauterize it. By the time they got it he was no longer conscious and died 6 hours later. 18 years ago this past winter.
