Mike Goff
(30 July 1940 - 1 Feb 2009)
My last blog was written the day before my dad went into the hospital for what we thought was bronchitis and maybe even pneumonia. Instead, we found out he had cancer in his liver, lung and brain and the liver cancer and he had an unknown blood infection. Despite all the efforts of the doctors and nurses, he died on Sunday morning, the 1st of February, about 6 o'clock from the sepsis. To say we were stunned would be an overstatement. The last months have been spent making sense of it all by those who love him. Some time during the week after he died, someone joked about being his favorite. The idea of that sat in my brain a few days and then I wrote down what I felt Dad would think about him having a "favorite". This is an exerpt of that because the longer he's gone, the more I appreciate the lessons he taught...
"...While I’m sure there are other things Dad loved and admired about each of us, these are the things that came to me. These have been the things I’ve been thinking about for over the last week. Dad loved each and every one of us. He might have railed and cussed about some of the things we did but, at the end of the day, he was in awe of his children – that he helped create us. It was a subject he would ponder again and again throughout his life.
He taught us all to have a sense of humor and we taught him to laugh at himself. He taught us all about the rewards of hard work and we taught him the value of taking a little time off. He taught us about unconditional love and we tested this concept that would proof that love in the fire of life’s trials. He taught us a love of country and what patriotism really is about. He taught us to embrace the good things in life because you never know what tomorrow would bring. He taught us respect for all living things and not to kill wantonly or cruelly but to use nature’s bounty for what we need but only what we need. He taught us to love with all our hearts even if our heart’s been broken in the past. He taught us about redemption, in a real life sense, and we were part of the reason he realized he needed to be redeemed.
So now, when someone asked you who Dad’s favorite was, you can say, “Me!” and know it’s the truth."
I miss you, Dad!
In looking for the photo that I have at the top of the page, I ran across the following pic. It's one of my favorites because it was so him. The gnome in front was his Christmas present a couple of years ago and you'd have thought that Momma had given him a pot of gold!
