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You’re Old and You Smell Funny
My father was dying, that much was immediately obvious to anyone. He had somehow contracted a disease so rare that multiple doctors and even the esteemed Mayo Clinic had stumbled on their initial diagnosis. The disease that was taking him was called “Inclusion Body Myositis.” I called it “ICBM.” ICBM kills muscle cells when they are exerted, those cells, instead of the normal process of expanding and strengthening, simply die and are never replaced. His original diagnosis was systemic weakness brought about by a sedentary lifestyle, and his doctors told him to exercise. So, my father bought exercise equipment and went to town, destroying his body in short order. Finally, somebody got the diagnosis right and told him to stop the exercising, but the damage had been done, and 5 years after his last run on the treadmill he took a seat in his first electric wheelchair. The doctors had destroyed him, and I was pissed, but my father was never the litigious type, and he just let it go.
My father had two great loves, the Brigham Young University football team and his grandchildren. I only gave him one, my daughter Sunny, but she was one of my father’s favorites. She had always been a pistol, and at 3 years old, she was a bundle of precocious energy that my father could watch all day. My daughter had long, platinum blonde hair from birth to go along with bright blue eyes and a million-watt smile when…