Today is Father's Day.  My father died 13 years ago of cancer.  I always feel his presence around me, guiding me.  He was a good, firm, gentle leader of the family.  We all miss him very much.  I am grateful for his role modeling of courage, strength, integrity, and humility.  It sounds very strange and I know this might bother some family members, but I sometimes think that cancer was one of the best things that happened to him in his life.  He was a very driven man, workaholic in fact, always thinking and creating new inventions in medicine, an obsessive compulsive genius.  But, he didn't play much.  Once he was diagnosed, his priorities changed.  In between all the surgeries & chemo and going in to remission and then chemo again, he made amends with his family, became closer to his wife, worked out issues.  Everything was "small potatoes", and "don't sweat the small stuff."  On his grave stone it says John Lennon's quote, "Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans."  He bought a grand piano and played it everyday.  He wrote and produced an opera.  He wrote 11 nonfiction books and hundreds of articles.  One of his novels, the "Green Team", is an Orange County based medical mystery story that he wrote during his illness. (I have a few of them if you want to borrow it!-- the "green" in this refers to the medical scrubs people in the hospital wear) He made lots of model air planes (gliders), he wrote novels and published them, he wrote his memoirs and family history, he travelled with my mom, took us all on a trip to hawaii, went to Europe with his grandson, ... he was able to learn how to play and have fun again.  He used the spoils of his life work to help him make peace with himself.  I remember towards the end, he said, "I am content.  I have no regrets.  I've done everything I wanted to do."  That scared me a bit because I felt that if he didn't have anything he had plans to do, he might lose the gusto for life.  But he knew his days were numbered and he used every single one of them to their fullest.  My mother, bless her heart, was there to help keep him as healthy as possible and alive.  It was very hard on her to see her life partner go, and that is the saddest part for me.  -- Well, I just had my annual "Father's Day Cry."  I would like everyone to value your fathers in any way that they enhanced your lives.  And if you are a father, step father, grandfather, or father-figure, remember the impact you have on your family is much more than the money you provide.