John L. Pastore: A Struggle With Life

without turning to drugs or alcohol to help me through my problems.
My father was only sick a short time before he passed away. It all happened so fast it was hard to take in. it’s been four years and I’m still coping with his death. One day my father had called me and told me that he had pains in his legs, that he went to the hospital but everything would be ok. A week later I had gotten a call from my stepmother telling me that my dad could no longer walk and that he was in the hospital, she was upset but optimistic. A few days later he was in the Intensive Care unit.
He had been a smoker most of his life, and the drinking added to it. His aorta was clogged with plaque from the smoking and drinking. He lost all circulation in his legs, and then to the rest of his body. He was hooked up to dialyses for a week or so. When he was in the hospital his mind was all mixed up. He barely knew who I was, he thought he was still married to my mom and he didn’t know who is wife was.
He decided he didn’t want to go out as a vegetable, so he went off the dialyses and went home, knowing he would only live a few days after being off of it. The last time I saw my father, he was sickly and pale and it was so hard to look at him. However, the last time I saw my father really made me proud to be his daughter. He told me he was proud of me, and it showed me the fighter he really was. But little did he know how proud of him I was. I have so much pride inside of me to say that my father was seventeen years sober. To see a man who went from having an addiction that messed up his whole life, to a father who tried very hard to be there for his children and wife.  
Exactly one week after my father passed I graduated from high school. It was one of the hardest days of my life, not having my dad there to see me walk across the stage. I was very naïve when he was sick, I really thought there would be a chance he would be there. However, I knew he was watching me from a higher place. When I walked across the stage they handed me my diploma as well as a rose. They had told us to give the rose to someone who had made an impact in our lives, and influenced us. I knew exactly where that rose was going. I met my stepmother outside the auditorium and asked her if she would put the rose on my fathers grave for me.  He has influenced my life in ways that I’m just beginning to understand.

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