The last video I have of John

This is the last video clip I have with John in it.  The kids got an air hockey table at Christmas and John hadnt gotten to play it with them.  One day a couple of weeks after Christmas while in his wheelchair we were able to position him in a way to play a few rounds with our youngest son.  As you can tell, our youngest was very proud to score a point on his dad ;) 

You can see John's arms/hands were beginning to give him trouble (as in he was losing control of them- we knew that would happen from the tumor, per the Dr's, but that did not make it any easier when we began to see it happening).  That really was the turning point for him- his arms began to go out, then within a rapid period of time basically did not work at all.  Within a couple of weeks of the onset of this he had passed.

Even with difficulty controlling his arms/hands and barely able to hold the air hockey mallet, he still played a couple of rounds of air hockey with our boy. I will always cherish these little videos I have of him, especially this one while he was sick and could barely control his arms/hands, but still did what our kid wanted him to do- spend time playing with him.  That's just part of why he was such a great dad- he'd do nearly anything for the kids, even if it was something that he had to struggle to do.  It broke his heart when he lost the use of his arms completely for lots of reasons, but mainly bc it left him much less able to interact with the kids or play with them.  It broke my heart for the same reason, and also because it left him so defeated.  We also knew that the loss of his arms meant that he would likely go downhill somewhat quickly...I didnt think it would be as quick as it was, and I'll never know if the infection caused him to pass, or if it was in fact the tumor, but either way, it was WAY too fast- much less time than we had hoped for when we began this nightmare, but also way less time than we expected once we were told there was nothing anyone could do for him.