Mom asked us to come ASAP to see dad at the end of February.  We flew down on Tue Feb 24, saw him in the hospital (where he'd ended up due to pneumonia) on Wednesday, saw him come home on Thursday (and we took care of some legal paperwork), and said goodbye to him on Friday before heading to the airport.

Kim and i were scheduled to leave to Europe on Monday, but she'd been dragging healthwise due to what we suspect was human metapneumovirus, and we waffled on whether we should cancel the trip. We decided on Sunday to go for it, but neither of us being at our best meant that we managed to forget our CPAPs, which we then had our dogsitter express to Basel.  Then they got stuck in customs for two days, by which time our river cruise had begun, which required a courier to bring the boxes to the first stop.  All told, that brain fart cost us over $1k.  But it was quite a relief to sleep well after three days of almost no sleep.  The river cruise was eight days and extremely enjoyable, and i managed to see two childhood friends and a cousin along the way.  We then spent another eight days in Amsterdam with our niece and her family.

Dad died twelve days after we left Ecuador (the day before the cruise ended).  In addition to the stomach cancer, they'd also found an aortic aneurysm.  He died at home in the best possible conditions.  His suffering was minimal.  Mom's now in the process of moving to the new house, and my aunt Martha will join her there.