ICE CREAM CONE DAY IS COMING SOON

The Unruhs and extended families that enjoy a connection with my Mother and Father, Tina and Edward Unruh, see March 8^th as a special day each year. It is treated as ICE CREAM CONE DAY.  It is also the date that commemorates my father’s birthday and recalls that he is gone now. He passed away in 2008 at the age of 93. He would be 97 today. 93 years was long enough for Dad however because Mom died six months earlier. Back in 2008 on the day we said goodbye to Dad, we all understood that we have lost two very special people in a brief period of time, yet we celebrated. I should explain that.

My father loved ice cream. Throughout our years as children and young adults and adults with children of our own, his suggestions punctuated our visits with delight. “'Let's stop here and see if they have some ice cream," or "Do you care for an ice cream cone?” “I think I would like a cone.” So, on the day of his funeral we paid the appropriate tributes and said our appreciative goodbyes to a wonderful father and grandfather, and then I credit my brother Murray and his wife Dianne with this lovely highlight of that day. They brought out ice cream scoops and ice cream tubs and cones, and we ate ice cream in memory of dad.

Each year now, on this date, in homes in British Columbia and Ontario where Dad’s descendents gather, we treat ourselves to an ICE CREAM CONE EXTRAVAGANZA. Grandpa Unruh was an established ice cream lover. One small cone always tasted like one more to him and if we were with him, that became the biggest treat - a gigantic splurge of pleasure. Having more than one cone today is playing by Grandpa's rules as my daughter put it.