My wife had two fathers. The first was by blood and marriage and he lived a good long life. The marriage failed and years later his Parkinson’s Disease took his life. We mourned his death not much more than a year ago, 2.4.12. Today her second father died suddenly leaving all of us shocked and unable to understand how fragile life can really be.
Au (a way of saying uncle in Lao) suffered what appears to be a brain hemorrhage and died this afternoon. He was healthy. He was planning to drive to Colorado to surprise my wife on her vacation. I cannot say what caused the aneurism, but I can say that it shocks me to the core. I felt invincible as a teen; less so now, but I never before imagined that there could be that tiny killer inside of me that could rip me from this life so suddenly. Eventually I will be able to process what happened and effectively deal with the loss. I can say this about the man: I lost my stepfather at 12 and until I met Au I never had a male role model who believed in me, respected me, and loved me.
We tend to define ourselves by our accomplishments. That could mean what we do, how much money we have, or who loves us. I feel like the definition of who we are has nothing to do with those things. I think the definition of an individual is about who we inspire. Au’s love inspired me to be everything I could be for the family. I will miss his voice, his smile, his jokes, and most of all, his love.