I left for quite awhile
& he was the reason behind it.
Only to find out later on that I became his reason.

Coming home for Christmas, I was in a rush and he tried sitting me down and I pushed it aside.
Not knowing, when he told me what was going on, my heart shattered.

Dad had cancer.

He was sick at this point, but I didn't wouldn't admit it to myself.
A daughter never wants to hear that someone so solid is starting to crumble.
Nobody can prepare you for what life throws at you, not even the strongest people.

When a parent gets cancer, you find it harder to breathe. It’s a struggle to pack up your books and exit the public place you’d been in all those minutes before knowing.

During this process, you have to be tough but being tough is by no doubt... one of the toughest things to carry out.

I don’t think of myself as weak, but I am known to cry at how cute a dog is after couple glasses of wine
I get extremely cranky when I have less than 7 hours of sleep and I still choose to let bugs loose outside instead of killing them

Your outlook makes a world of difference and I needed to change mine so my dad could change his.
There are many reasons to be angry, such as "why him" or "bad things always happen to good people"
but..
there's also so much to be thankful for.

There's a book, "The Last Lecture" written by Randy Pausch about his life and his battle.
Though there are many inspirational moments in that book, the one part I always find myself thinking of when I’m having a hard time is when Randy finds out his cancer has spread throughout his body

This is the moment that Randy and his wife realize that his battle was coming to an end
“Whatever news we get about the scans, I’m not going to die when we hear it,” he said to her. “I won’t die the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that. So today, right now, well this is a wonderful day”