I lost my dad to renal cancer on January 28th, 1997. He was diagnosed the previous April. I wasn't there for him when he died. I should've been. I have an answering machine tape where my step mother called me to tell me how bad he was getting, and in the background, he's yelling my name. That was a month or so before he died. He was so delirious from the pain killers he was on, that he hardly recognized me the last time I saw him.

My paternal grandfather also died of cancer (bone cancer) in 1986...3 months before my first daughter was born. We were so close, but I never told him he had a great-grandchild on the way. (i was only 19)

I miss them both very much and often wonder if my life would be a whole lot better if they were both still around.