A Personal Message From Paul

Photo by Federico Respini on Unsplash

Many of you know that I am a set of Irish twins. I was born January 18, and my brother was born exactly 10 months later on November 18. But I also have a younger sister that was born 13 months later on December 21.

Since there were three of us in the family under age 2, you can safely say that we were somewhat rambunctious as children. My sister actually tried to “kill” me as least two times when we were kids. The first time was throwing a rock over an embankment on our property. She did not realize that I was at the bottom and the rock hit me in the back of the head. That required a trip to the hospital and multiple stiches.

The second time occurred when we were playing King of the Mountain on a set of grain drills (I know that was not the brightest idea). I happened to finally be the King, and my sister grabbed my leg and topple me off of the drill right on the metal hitch again with the back of my head. I still remember the blood spurting out of my head and the ten-mile trip to the hospital to stitch that one up.

But the good news was that I was never mad at her for this or anything else (at least not too mad).

My parents were older and when they retired my sister elected to live with them until they died. My mother had a major stroke right after we got married and she became fully paralyzed on her left side and difficult to care for, but my sister did not complain and took great care of them until they died.

It is with deep sadness that I let everyone know that my sister Sharon passed away peacefully in her sleep last night at about 6 pm CT at our home at age 64.

Beside every good man is a great woman and in my case, it is my wife, Patty. When we found out that my sister had aggressive form of cancer, my wife elected to fly to Walla Walla, Washington to get my sister ready to move in with us. She was with my sister for a few weeks and finally flew her home to live with us.

When she was with us, she had to go into the hospital for about a month, and my wife was there every day for at least a few hours playing games with my sister or just spending time talking. She and my sister had heart-to-heart talks about chemo and finally Hospice. My sister spent that last two weeks of her life in our home, and my wife provided all of the care for her and I cannot express how much I love my wife of almost 42 years for her always willingness to help others in need including my sister.

Sharon, your brother and I love you and will miss you.