As I See It: Remembering John Magee

As some of you may have seen over the last week on my website, Facebook, and elsewhere online; my dad John Magee, passed away early February 20 after a coronary event that occurred Sunday night, literally as we were sitting down upstairs to watch the Elimination Chamber PPV.

It's hard to know what to say after you lose your father. He lived a very full life, leaving us at 80 years old. He'd been in good health his whole life. He got colon cancer in 2010, was operated on successfully, had a tumor removed, an iliostomy put in, which he had reversed only days ago. He came home from that reversal procedure at the hospital that Friday, and collapsed only 48 hours later. We believe he blew a post-surgical clot. He was pretty much dead from the moment of the arrest. While EMTs did restart his heart, it's doubtful if he had brain activity after the attack. All of us made the decision to disconnect him from the machines early Monday morning after being given that news.

He had a private viewing and graveside ceremony on that Friday morning, per his wishes.

I learned many things from him, the best of them: work ethic and determiniation. There are other views about the world that I look at very differently than he ever did. I am a very different person when it comes to dealing with those who are diffferent than I am. He was a far more traditional person in that regard. But even in that he gave me a lesson to learn.

I keep various Chinese fortune cookies messages in my cubicle at work, with the most recent that I kept being, ironically, "Keep on keepin' on". It's what I'm going to have to do in the days and weeks to come. I ask for your thoughts and prayers to help me to do that.

Like all people, I knew this day would come some day. I just didn't think it was coming now. That may be a lesson for us all, to love those in your life...this is as much proof as you need that you can lose them at any time, with no warning, even after you think you've dodged a bullet.

Until next time...