"If it wasn't for Bad Luck, you'd have no luck at all, kid"

My pops said this phrase on many occasion and every time it was in reference to yet another mishap in mine and my fiance's life. And there were quite a few - from the tranny blowing in yet another one of our mini-vans to Erik breaking yet another cell phone. In the 4 years we've been together my (now) husband has been through as many vehicles and about 6 cell phones. Pops called him the "phone menace". He also called him the "car menace". Even when one of my cars broke down, the cosmos had so aligned it would occur when that poor sap was behind the wheel. Nonetheless, we crossed our fingers and plunged feet-first into unholy matrimony on 8th, November 2008.

And of course the day had it's hiccups. First, our photographer bailed and sent in his place one of the most bumbling, crotchety, inept old German man one could find. He immediately rubbed my Pops the wrong way; both arriving at my Aunt's ("Uddah-Muddah") the same time, he complained, fist pumping in the air, "you know, you should put a house number somewhere - I couldn't find the place!" My pops just glanced over his shoulder and replied "Why the fuck should I? I don't live here." (Pops was always good with a nice quick witty cranky reply.) Barely halfway through the night the hall ran out of Killian's and had no Guinness (my husbands two favourites). But the sweetest, funniest "screw up" of the day came at the beginning of our ceremony. Never being married before myself, and a good 41 years since Pops made his way down the aisle, we found ourselves a bit confused over the process of his handing me over to the man I was to marry. We assumed the Pastor would first say "Who gives this woman . . . etc." then the hand-off would occur. Instead, the hand-off occured first and thinking he was done, Pops when to find his seat. Just as he was getting settled, the question came "Who gives this woman unto this man?" silence Again, "Who gives this woman unto this man?" Whispers could be heard from the corner of the room "Ron! Ron! That's you! THAT'S YOU!" At which point he jumped up and exclaimed "Oh yeah! That's me! I do!" As bumbling an idiot as our photographer was, he managed to capture the moment on film . . . and it's everyone's favourite.

Pops and Aunt Jan (his sister, my "uddah muddah")

Exactly one month to the day, my Pops was being transferred, in the midst of a heart attack, from Mather Memorial Hospital to Stony Brook University Hospital. Hours later he would undergo a triple angioplasty.