Starting off on the first day of retirement, Mike looked forward to doing some things he had dreamed about for years. Bound for the eastern Caribbean on a November evening, Mike looked to starboard. The tall imposing walls of Castillo San Felipe del Morro, a massive fort built by the Spanish nearly five hundred years ago, loomed in the darkness.

Near Pensacola, his daughter Kendra was expecting her first child very close to Christmas day. There wasnt much more he could possibly ask for in his life. Kendra wanted her dad to be Papi for her soon-to-be infant. Papi it would be. He looked forward to helping care for the new arrival and also getting out and doing many things. First though, he wanted to soak in adventure that lay before him.

Back home, a storm was brewing. Not a hurricane, not that kind of storm. Illness was rapidly spreading. A flu was leaping through the population, and many strong young women seemed to be more susceptible than others. When Mike left on his retirement cruise, Kendra had a sniffle. When he returned home, everything had changed. In the space of twelve hours, he would fly from Puerto Rico to Pensacola. Then from his home near Pensacola, his wife and Kendras husband would drive to Birmingham, Alabama, where nothing would seem real or believable. Just weeks after retiring from working with children in their homes and in hospital settings, once again, Mike was in a hospital setting. Only this time, it was his child whose life was threatened. This is a story of what a parent lives when their child is hospitalized and then lost.