(from left) Dad, me, Brittany and Mom at Glen Echo, Easter--1997

Staring from the backseat of a silver Dodge Durango, I thought how life has a way of changing on you in an instant.  One day you're thinking about college, the next, you're thinking about matters of life and death.  Looking at that silver casket on that cool October morning, I wasn't worrying about the things normal 17-year-olds should be concerned with, like cars and dances.  Instead, I was trying to figure out what life would life be like without a father.
   
In the summer of 2000, my father developed a nagging cough and chest pains that wouldn't go away.   Doctors told him that it was a sinus infection and a minor surgery could solve the problem.  After losing nearly 40 pounds, it was obvious that something more serious was wrong.   A few tests proved that my dad was facing lung cancer.  

The diagnosis wasn't good.  My dad was told he had stage four, non-small cell lung cancer.  The cancer had spread through most of the left side of his torso and all over his spine.  The prognosis--60 to 90 days left to live.    

This was one of the more surreal moments of my life.  How could it be that this man who had been the picture of strength my entire life was facing a disease that was going to kill him?  My dad was a 45-year-old man. People his age are not supposed to die. People in their forties are supposed to be thinking about where they're going on their next golf trip, not about where they want to be buried. But now my family was thinking about it, and there was nothing we could do.

Instantly I had to assume more responsibility than I had ever expected to have at 16.  Not only that, but I had to become an emotional support for a man who had been mine so many times before.

During that year I learned a lot about myself and about life.  I ended up spending time around a lot of very sick people. When I would sit with my dad at chemotherapy after school,  I got to see a different side of an illness, a human side. Many times people are only identified by their disease, but people forget that a person is still inside that body.

For the first time, I knew what it was like to be on the other side of a stare.  So many times before I had stared at people who were "different" than me.  Now, my dad was the one being stared at. People would stare at my dad's bald head and eyebrow-less face.   They could be brutal.  It used to upset my dad so much when people would act differently towards him, forgetting he was still a person.  I used to want to say something, but I knew they didn't know better.

Dad and me at the Ravens vs. Redskins game, October 2000 Photo by Tim Quigley

There are times when I wish I still had the normal family, like everyone else. But my life has been changed for the better and been given a purpose by the lessons learned from my dad and his illness.