My old friend Troy - dead in a car accident at age 40, 1995. Peter in the Engineering Department - age uncertain but certainly over 55, collapses in the office from a stroke, 2000. Tonya from the Drafting Department - car flips on the highway, killing her and her young daughter, 2005. My father - complications from pneumonia while on vacation in Hawaii, 2006.

Last year, I got a letter from Dad telling me that on the 12th of May, he suffered a transient ischemic attack - TIA, sometimes called a mini-stroke. It starts just like a regular stroke but then resolves leaving no noticeable symptoms or deficits, and occurs when the blood supply to part of the brain is briefly interrupted. When he got home from the hospital, he wrote:

"A heaviness came over me. I cannot do the same things as before. I cannot run into the ocean waves with a surf board over my head looking to grab the biggest wave; ride a bicycle into a tree; wear Billy Martin's baseball card on my NY baseball cap as I coached Little League plus Babe Ruth baseball for so many years; jump off a road bridge into the water below for a penny bet; slide down a slippery rock slide into a pool of water off the Kancamagus highway; dance to jazz such as 'Sing, Sing, Sing;' run for political office; have my own coffee radio station; write sport stories; be the host to my television golf show or ski down the slopes of Sugarloaf mountain. My body caught up with my age. Did anyone tell?"

I don't even have the letter any more - the only way I found the excerpt above was from searching through old blog entries.