While this has been a private part of my family's life, it is now clear a media story will soon emerge. My father tragically ended his life while battling terminal cancer in 1979.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My father died of brain cancer in 1991. I do not know anyone whose life has not been touched by the loss of a loved one to cancer. I wrote my book 'Gracefully Gone' about my father's fight and my struggle growing up with an ill parent. I wrote it to help others know they are not alone in this all-too-often insurmountable war against cancer.
My father passed from cancer in 2000; his brother died of cancer before that. My grandfather died of cancer.
My dad was diagnosed with cancer, so we ended up burying him a year to the day that he was diagnosed.
My main memories of my father are of his illness.
When I was 14, my dad came home one day and told us he had cancer. It was looking pretty bad. And I remember him saying how afraid he was that he hadn't gotten to do the things he wanted to do during his life. He had surgery and survived. And he's still alive today, thank God. But it made a big impact on me.
My father's death from prostate cancer in 1993 was tragic. He never complained about pain. He was a fighter. By the time he was ready to die he wasn't able to die in the way that he wanted to, which seemed an outrage to me.
When my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1991, I asked him if he had any regrets, and he said no. I was a burnt-out litigation solicitor in my thirties, hating my life, and his cancer made me re-evaluate it all.
At the age of 62, my father died of cancer - it was much too soon. My mother never remarried or got over it, never even thought of another man.
In 1989, my father died after a prolonged struggle with Alzheimer's disease. All four of his siblings followed him into the shadow lands of that fascinating, maddening affliction.
In 2001, my father finally succumbed to the bone cancer that had tortured him for seven years. His last weeks were a terrible, black icing on the cake, the agony, the slow twisting, thinning and snapping of his skeleton. Everything fell apart.