My father died on a sun-dappled day in October, the rolling Bucks County hills outside his hospital room ablaze in the crimson and gold of Fall.
   My last memory of the man who co-created my life consisted of his pale white feet sticking out from the beneath the crisp hospital sheet with a tag attached to the gnarled big toe on his right foot.
   So ended a life once filled with hope, sweetness and passion.  
   Which is how and why the blog you’re reading got its name:

   www.toetagdiary.com

     Oh yes.
    Knowing he was powerless over his imminent death, my father sought to my mother's bedside terror by joking about what he might enjoy on the dinner menu a nurse had just handed him.
    "Too bad,"he said, "the chicken's baked instead of fried." 
    Then, less than a half hour later, they pulled a sheet over his head and tagged my father's toe.

     "When the universe has crushed him, man will still be nobler than that which kills him -- because he knows that he is dying, while of its victory the universe knows nothing." 
                                                Blaise Pascal