Best day/worst day...same day?

Has anyone had any days in life reminiscent of Ed Furillo in the movie "City Slickers"?

You know, where your best day and worst day = the same day?

I'd like to share a confluence of events that made for probably the most memorable day of my life, for opposing reasons.

It was Aug. 6, 2008.

My father died in the early-morning hours, at about 1:30 a.m., that day. Less than five hours later, I was in surgery, undergoing a previously planned gastric-bypass procedure that has since helped me lose and maintain a weight loss of 146 pounds.

The day changed my life, for better, and, of course, for worse, too. Every year, every day, since that one, I've missed my dad. He suffered Parkinson's disease, a relatively mild case, and also, the prostate cancer that eventually got him, almost 10 years after he had been diagnosed with an already-advanced case.

What sticks with me now, though, is remembering how, just a couple of weeks before he passed, we'd been talking about my upcoming surgery.

Thanks to a lengthy insurance battle, it had been four years in the works, but that was behind us, and we talked with excitement and some trepidation about the surgery, which we hoped would help me tackle for good and handle well a long-time issue in my life, which it, thankfully, has done.

Dad looked forward to the anticipated weight loss, to seeing what would happen and how I would do, and to celebrating any changes as they occurred.

"I wasn't sure I was going to get to see it," he said. "But, it looks like I'm going to make it."

Well, he didn't, unfortunately, and that is the one regrettable thing about the whole process that sticks with me now. And the surreal-ity of that day four years ago still has not entirely worn off. I'm not sure it ever will.

I always remember today, for reasons more personally close than the terrible one in 1945 that makes the date one of the most memorable in U.S. history anyway.

Thanks for indulging me.

If anyone else has had similar days, for any reasons, please share. I think it could be good.