Father's Day always dawns bittersweet. My father died in 1984, of complications brought on by acquiring AIDS. He came down with leukemia in 1982, went to a hospital in San Francisco for a blood transfusion--the common treatment at that time--and, since no one was screening blood yet, developed what was then called GRID as a result.
The only thing I truly resent about his last days is that the hospital firmly denied what was going on. I know their legal staff was panicked, but at the time, this was what we were studying in school. He had Karposi's sarcoma when I went to see him, a staggeringly obvious ailment. But the hospital denied the visual evidence. I didn't want to bring a lawsuit; I wanted him to be accurately diagnosed.
Cary Grant, of course, wasn't my father. But they could have been brothers, easily--the same cleft chin, the same rueful grin, the same width of shoulders, the same half-hooded eyes. To this day, I watch Cary Grant films and my heart clenches, just a bit.
Happy Father's Day.
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