The Whatever Contest -- Closed for Now

What a sweet, but sad story. Thank you for sharing! BTW, you were crazy adorable as a baby!!! I'm sorry about the loss of your parents. I've lost both of mine as well. By the time I was 37, I had no parent, grandparents, aunts, or uncles. We don't have a lot of longevity in our family. Thankfully, I still have my brother and quite a few cousins, though we just lost one of them today.

He had cancer, but a good prognosis. They removed part of his liver, but apparently took too much and it wouldn't regenerate and he died before they could do anything...or at least that's what I understand. It seems unusual that they wouldn't have noticed him getting jaundiced, but I didn't want to ask his daughter too many prying questions right now. For that matter, even later as such questions to suggest the death might have been preventable (whether it was or not) might be too hurtful to bother asking.

Slightly amusing story about finding out about his death, though. His daughter is a drama queen. We talk several times a week, but there's always some drama. Her dog has been about to die since last summer. She'll call crying because he won't make it until (insert next holiday or upcoming milestone), though last I saw him, while he's old, he didn't at all seem to be on his last legs. So, today she called upset and said, "I just had the worst day of my life." I almost said, "I doubt that." THANKFULLY, I DIDN'T!!! I have 2 cousins with cancer right now and her dad was the one expected to be fine. It was quite the shock to hear of his death only a couple of days after he was doing so well from a recent surgery. But I'm so used to her being such a drama queen about things that I assumed this was just another example. It sort of reminded me of the boy who cried wolf. Not sure if that's funny or upsetting...

Anyway, good job with your free verse efforts! I'm excited to read it! And definitely thank you for sharing your family story!