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March 28th, 1998 My father fought valiantly against the cancer that devoured him from the inside for over a year, despite humiliation, disability, pain, gruesome medical procedures and fear. He showed us all a super-human strength, willpower, and a raging will to live that can be spoken of only with great respect. Stunning his doctors, he managed to claw his way back from setback after setback. Against all odds he patiently re-built his strength, speech and mobility. He made a poor patient but was, in the end, a noble survivor. He was a testament to the strength of the human spirit. When the disease finally took him, it took him quickly. On the night of Saturday, March 28th, 1998, at 8:00, after a two-day coma, my father died of terminal brain cancer in the company my mother and in the comfort of his own home. He went peacefully, after saying goodbye to his family and friends. He was 57 years old. He had three children, all grown, and one beautiful granddaughter. It is my most fervent hope that he found what he needed in his life and from the extra time he claimed. I hope he exorcised the personal demons haunting him. I think he did. There was much I never understood about my father, and I can only hope that he found what he needed to find, the same wish that in the end we all have for ourselves. I'd like to think that I came to an understanding with my father. I like to think that, in the end, we found something in each other. Our last conversations were difficult, and I'm not sure if we had much to say or knew quite how to say it. For me, his impending death was immensely difficult. But that was, of course, my own difficulty. Above all else, I miss my father, more now than I ever have. Internal regrets haunt with a force rarely paralleled in the external world. I can do nothing now but wish him good speed on the journey he's undertaken. |