Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: On the passing of my dad From: inForm@primenet.com (Rev. Dennis L Erlich) Date: 18 Feb 1996 10:35:02 -0700 Faithful Reader, My father died Tuesday, February 13th, in Palm Springs, California (one year to the day after the scienos raided me). He was 81. This time last year he was in what seemed to be perfect health. He played golf a couple of times a week and was even working part-time as a marshall at one of the many golf courses in town. He had a very simple operation to remove a bladder stone in March of '95 and from that time his strength rapidly went to zero. He died of mylo displastic syndrome; a bone marrow disease related to leukemia, which causes acute anemia and inability to stop bleeding. He had been getting transfusions of blood and platelets for the last several months. Syd was a veteran of WWII and had retired after 33 years in the US Postal Service as a letter carrier. Most of that time was spent walking a business route down San Fernando Road in Glendale, California. A quiet man whose joys were fishing, golf and watching the Discovery channel nature shows, he and I only developed a truly loving relationship after he and my mom helped me to leave the cult. In my foolish youth, we didn't get along at all. My brash and contentious nature ensured that I nearly never took his abundent and loving advice. After a while, he stopped wasting his breath on me. In recent years, however, we had become very close during yearly fishing trips we had begun to take to the High Sierras. I now understand something that he had often repeated in my youth. "There are right ways and wrong ways to do things", he'd attempt to instruct me. I previously had rejected advice he offered in favor of finding "my own way". I thank God that our paths did not remain divergent. And I know that if there is a heaven, my dad will be there, smiling and beckoning me to join him, as he trolls for bass or sits silently on the shore of some pristine, crystal-blue mountain lake. ... "If it be Your will that I speak no more, and my voice be still as it was before; I will speak no more, I shall abide until I am spoken for, if it be Your will." - Leonard Cohen Rev. Dennis L Erlich * * the inFormer * * "There are two classes of citizen in the US: those who can afford 'equal justice under the law' and the rest of us."