IN MEMORY OF ROBERT E. VANEPS

This is the last professional picture of Bob taken on his daughter, Lisa's, wedding day in January of 2002. He passed away on July 2, 2002 from colon cancer. He was my husband and the love of my life. I miss him so much. We should have been traveling or working in the yard or gardening. He was a master at gardening. I don't ever remember him without seeing him in his garden. People would stop to admire his garden. They were perfect!

He decided to retire early on Halloween, 2000. He was looking forward to enjoying life. He only had a few short months of enjoying that life when he became ill in February 2001. It started with a cough that he couldn't shake, then he got progressively worse. The doctor was treating him for sinus problems because he had previous problems with that. However, he started to get really weak and very tired and was told by the doctor he needed to take a vitamin with iron. Finally, as he got sicker, we decided he needed to go to the emergency room in Duluth, MN since he was not getting the help he needed from his doctor in Virginia, MN. So, on his 61st birthday, we learned that he was anemic and had to have a pint of blood before they would let him leave the Duluth hospital.

The very next day, he felt as though he were having heart pains, so he was ambulanced back to the Duluth hospital and the very next day he had a colonoscopy which found a large tumor at the end of his colon and the cancer had already spread to his liver. The doctors gave him 3 months to 3 years to live and he did not make his 62nd birthday dying just 29 days short of that birthday. As a side note, he had had a full physical before he retired, however, not a colonoscopy but a sigmoid, which isn't as reliable, if that's the word.