The worst?
Cancer took my dad. How much closer can it get when you lose someone you love so dearly and there's nothing you could do to stop it? For me, I don't have questions of "what if?". There's no pondering "if only...". I can't change what happened. I can't go back. There's nothing but going forward without my dad and that hurts.
Just my dad though? No! It's not bad enough that it took my dad, it tried to take me almost 20 years ago, it tried to take my mom only a couple years ago. Cancer's a disease, it's everywhere, and it's affecting more and more of my loved ones all the time.
And that's why I'm fighting cancer. I'm fighting cancer for myself, my loved ones, and for everyone else because someday your loved ones will be touched by cancer.
The best?
Before cancer I took life for granted; I didn't understand that there is more to life than coasting by; I never knew the good that resides in people; I judged people that were different--mentally, physically, or otherwise; I didn't have a career; and, I didn't understand the depths my parents loved me.
That all changed when I got cancer. It wasn't necessarily a fast change. I'm still changing and I like to think it's for the better. I constantly battle being different. It's not just that I think differently than a lot of people, I'm okay with that. It's the other things that I think I need to struggle against. I struggle with weight, I struggle with treating all people decently, I struggle with having compassion, I struggle with my anger, I struggle to be a good husband, and I struggle to be a good father.
A lot of the time I feel like I fail at those things. Does that mean that I'm a failure? No! It means that I understand the value of fighting against myself to be a better person. It means there's always more time to do better, be better, treat people better, and improve who I am.
A lot of my wanting to be better and working towards that end is probably because I want to be the kind of person that I feel my family deserves. Years from now, I don't want to die with regrets. I don't want my kids to wonder about the kind of person that I was, what made me tick, or how much I love them. I want them to remember me as always there to dust them off but able to let them lead their own lives.
You may wonder what cancer has to do with the above so let me explain it. I learned the depths of my parent's love because I saw first hand what my having cancer did to them. I started my career because during chemotherapy I sat behind a keyboard all day and learned the ins-and-outs of computers. I moved to California because I found a job down there and it seemed like a fun place to be. I became tolerant of people because chemotherapy caused me to become super morbidly obese. I had surgery to lose weight in an effort to stay alive and embrace life. I met my wife because I was in the right place, at the right time, and I'd learned to embrace life. I have my kids because I bamboozled my wife into loving me--hehehe. I learned the good that resides in people because every day I meet people that touch my life in positive ways, my wife shows me examples of how to be a better person, my kids show me the innocence of children, and recently the good in people is so very obvious because of the support from people, like yourself, that read what I have to say, understand that I'm fighting cancer, and come together to support me in my fight and/or the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and their mission to find a cure for cancer and support patients and their families.
So yeah, cancer was the best thing to ever happen to me and the worst. Even so...
F U cancer, I miss my dad.
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