February 4 (World Cancer Day)

Tonight I reflect on memories of my loving parents (cue the tears)...In 2006 my mother died of lung cancer. I believe she knew she was sick, but didn't tell anyone. For about a year leading up to her death her memory was slipping away, and I remember telling my dad "I think something is wrong with mom" The first time I noticed it, I had come home from work for my lunch break and the day before she had told me about her conversation with her sister and what had happened on her favorite soap opera...so that day she told me the same exact thing...and I replied "yea I know mom you told me that yesterday"...she said "Oh I did, sorry" and from that day on, she kept repeating her stories and I had to stop myself from saying "mom remember you told me", because I didn't want to hurt her feelings and make her feel like something was really wrong.

The last thing that I said to my mom was "Please go to the doctor and get that cough checked out...I love you and I hope that it is nothing serious, I'm sure its not, but you still need to go!!!"

I was at work when I got the phone call that my dad was taking my mom to the hospital and one week later she was gone...The cancer had taken over her body and it was to late. May 3, 2006 The Heavens received an angel.

On July 12, 2012 at 1:30am I lost my dad to lung cancer...6 years apart from my mothers passing and I felt the same emptiness as I did when my mother died. Again I think my dad knew he was sick and didn't tell anyone. It was like my mother was dying all over again. He was forgetting everything he was telling me, and repeating the same stories. A week before his passing he came down from North Carolina and brought me the last photo album ( I became the photo album holder of the family after my mom died) and he had lost so much weight, he told me it was because he had been working out in the heat. We visited with the kids and he told me he was going to have to skip our lunch date because his stomach wasn't feeling very good and that he wouldn't visit again until it got a little bit cooler.

I got the phone call the next week that he was being admitted into the hospital because he couldn't sit up without being in so much pain. They then discovered that his kidneys were shutting down, and a few days later he went to be with my mother!

My parents are truly missed by many and this is a tribute to the both of them! I will always be daddy's little girl and my mother's angel!! I love you both very much and talk to you often. I feel your presence around me and know that you are watching over me!!

Today is World Cancer Day and it is a chance to raise our collective voices in the name of improving general knowledge around cancer and dismissing misconceptions about the disease.

CANCER SUCKS, BUT LIFE MUST GO ON!!