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The father/son relationship is rather complicated in my family. Dad was raised around a few tough old Samurai types in a pioneering family that settled part of central California. They grew up really hardscrabble and made a living buying and parcelling tracts of land, farming, speculating on grain, etc. They never said things like "I love you".
We went through a few scares over Dad's health. The family pulled together and we were always there as a family with him. The last scare was when he hit his head and had a subdural hematoma. Basically a giant blood clot that took about a quarter of his skull capacity. Just before surgery I was the last person to talk to him. I asked the doc "As long as you're in there, can you just dial up his hearing too? He never hears his phone ring and it drives us all crazy". Dad and the doc had a good laugh over that. I felt closer to him then than if we had said goodbye or something. He still kicks my ass to this day if I leave his tools out or don't close the gate when I leave their house.
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