This past Sunday, March 9, my father lost his battle with lymphoma.

I am sad to have lost him, of course, but also relieved that he is no longer struggling with the disease. I also think he was happy to have gone at home, in his own bedroom, instead of in hospital.

The folks at hospice have been wonderful through all this; they were very compassionate and took great care of him. Thank you to the members of the team - Barbara, Adela, Michelle and Derek. You helped all of us very much.

A side note - Sunday would have been my paternal grandmother's 100th birthday.

On a personal level, in a sort of roundabout way, my father was the inspiration for my small business. He introduced me to Star Trek (the original series, natch) when I was small, took me and my sister to our first viewings of a number of science fiction films (I still remember him asking us "Do you want to go to the past or the future?" on one summer afternoon - it turned out he would have taken us to see either Raiders of the Lost Ark or the then-current Trek movie. We chose Raiders, btw), and took us to our very first convention (a one-day event in Niagara Falls, NY). Now, years later, here I am selling at sci-fi and anime conventions. Thanks, Dad. :)

"I will not say goodbye. Instead, I'll say Sayonara. For sayonara doesn't mean goodbye; it means we'll meet again, sometime, somewhere." -my father.