My Dad and Elena

Editor's Note: Tomorrow, back to reunion stuff. Today is for me.


Daddy, I love you. Such simple words, but words I have such a hard time saying directly to him. Maybe I can direct him here....so he can know it as the basic truth it is.

My dad met Elena after a failed marriage which he entered into, way too soon after my mother died. Some men are like that...they just can't be alone. As his second marriage was failing, my dad found the computer, and shortly after that, he found the internet. He met Elena, the second love of his life on some Jewish Singles Dating site. They have been together nearly as long as Mike and I. Elena is the only grandmother David has ever known. My mother died so many years ago I can no longer count them on two hands, though I still think of her every day, and Mike's mother died just as we'd made the decision to pursue an international adoption. Elena and Dad mean the world to David.

Elena has been valiantly fighting advancing MS for as long as we've known her. Even as her strength weakened, she was climbing mountains, going on cruises, keeping up with her very active grandchildren, and grandmothering David. Elena is facing one now that nothing can help her through. When we saw her on Yom Kippur, she looked beautiful, she looked radiant, and she looked vacant. What's happening now, to Dad and Elena is just heartbreaking. He is a man totally in love with a woman who he is losing slowly, right in front of his eyes.

I get a phone call every week or so from Elena's daughter, telling me of yet another infraction my dad has committed. He is who he is. At 86, I am not going to change him, nor do I want to. In my eye, his only sin is loving her too much.

This is my tribute to my Dad.

Daddy. I love you.