A Noble Life: My Father
John J. O’Hara 11/13/10-11/23/89
Dad struggled but won over his demons through love. He loved all of us kids and my mother.
He was raised by a depressed distant mother who favored his older sister. She got a new convertible and a fur coat for her 16th birthday. She was smart and went to Vassar. My dad went to trade school, then became a carpenter after studying art. He was a fine artist. He returned to art after his first heart attack.
The six of us kids each of us gave him hell—especially me. I was suicidal, had to go to the psych hospital. My dad had to deal with a lot of stress, but he lived till 79, lived thru fifteen heart attacks, died at the sixteenth.
I am carrying on his fight against heart disease and it gives me courage to think of him.
I know he is looking after me now. A clairvoyant told me my father loves that I am caring for the babies, giving them the care that he and I never received but longed for.
By Marita Wottke
Marita Wottke is a retired Seattle nurse, who volunteers with terminally ill infants.
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