Gone 17 years

This is one of my favorite photos of my father – a candid shot of him walking on the courthouse square in Delphi, Ind., headed for his office on a sunny weekday morning in the early 1940s.

Charles M. Flora would have been in his early 30s at the time, married since 1939 and living at 609 E. Franklin Street with his bride, Eileen. They were childless – I was born in July, 1945 and I believe my mother miscarried a baby girl before I was born.

This photo is appropriate today because my dad left this world on this date in 1997 at the age of 87. His last few years were spent in ill health and in a nursing home and he hated it.

My mom was called to the nursing home when he died and swore he stuck his tongue out at her when she went into his room. The facts argue against that, but I prefer to believe mom because that was something dad would have done.

There hasn’t been a day in the past 17 years that I haven’t thought about my father and wished I could share a thought or experience with him.

Mom adored him and only lasted a little shy of three years without him.