bokey wrote: 
That is one beautiful lady right there, My condolences.

 mrs_amanda wrote: 
I got her looks, and hopefully her body, which never gave up. Now if I've inherited Pop's ongoing brain I'm cool.

 And she was smarter than me and I'm a Mensa member.

bokey wrote:  Beautiful. 

 MsJudi wrote: 
Better to bitch with us than at him.

 bokey wrote: 
And here I am, bitching about my dad in another thread.

 oldviolin wrote: 
To me she will always be. I'll never be loved or forgiven for my all so many mistakes like that. She was wonderful and I'll always miss her

But I'm gonna go to my grave knowing I did her right and took care of her.
 She died 47 minutes before my birthday, despite her horrendous dementia, I think she was trying to hang on. Poor thing couldn't quite make it.

 bokey wrote: 
she is still beautiful, brah...

 kysmet wrote: 

Mom would have been 85 today.

 Fucking cancer.

 

 oldviolin wrote: 
also, in this pic he looks like one of my favorite people of all time; Vince Lombardi. I was a Baltimore Colt fan, but whatever...

 kysmet wrote: 

awesome

 kysmet wrote: 

Never got to meet him, but he sure sounds awesome  

 sirdroseph wrote: 
I never really appreciated how fine of a man he was when I was growing up but as an adult, I've realized how lucky I was to have him. He was my step-dad but I never call him that other than to differentiate between my first dad (I was adopted so I don't refer to my "first dad" as my real dad - he's the one who lives in California who I see every once in a while). My (step) dad, Bob, married my mom when I was 4. He was 17 years older than her and had already raised two daughters who were out on their own. So here he was starting over again with a little girl. Because of the age difference, along with other things (he was raised on a farm in the South during The Depression, went to school in a one-room school house with his sister and brothers and his family was pretty poor whereas my mom was from an affluent Upstate New York family), I never felt like we related to each other very well and I gave him a lot of trouble, especially as a teenager. I often think about how many times I wanted to scream, "You're not my real father!" (even though that's not really how I felt) and I'm so thankful that I never did because I know that would have broken his heart. He loved me so much and took me on as his own. He taught me so many things and if I've ever made you laugh, well, you have him to thank for the sense of humor he passed on to me.

Here we are with my (step) sister - his daughter - Karie in San Francisco in 1979. Karie is the one who had the heart attack last month. She was a daddy's girl and still has a hard time with him being gone. I know this day is especially hard for her with being in the hospital as well as the fact that her birthday just passed a couple weeks go. 

 

And the day I graduated high school in 1987.

 kysmet wrote: 

I bet he was a fine man, great quote too.

for k-love

 kysmet wrote: 
you mention him often. He must have been a fine man.

 kysmet wrote: 

Today would have been my dad's 86th birthday so you know what that means: I'll be eating some fried okra tonight in his honor. I can't believe it's been 6 years since he's been gone. I hope that he's having fun, playing the piano, which he always longed to do but said his fingers were too fat...lol, and that he's (as he would say) "happier than a jackass eatin' sawbriars." Extra points to you if you know what that means.

 

 JrzyTmata wrote: 
We tend to keep our pain inside of us, control us, because when we are in terrible pain, we are afraid that if we let those feelings out, we will explode or something. It's like letting a demon out of the box, very frightening.

I remember thinking once that if I made art from the way I feel, it would look like mayhem. It's a hard feeling to look at.

My latest piece is entitled "Happy Happy Joy Joy" because it reflects how I can now make art that reflects happiness instead of pain.