I remember my parents calling my siblings and I into my living room. I remember everyone else sitting on the couch, but I stood in the kitchen. I always had a sense when something had gone or was soon to go wrong, and though I have only been able to verbally communicate such recently, I knew nothing good was soon to come;

My dad was sitting with on our brown couch, with his back towards the garage door. My view in the kitchen, was, from left to right, father, sister, sister, fireplace, brother, mother, television, dogs moving about.

It's incredible how some memories are forever etched.

My dad told us that he had been diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer.

A 1% SURVIVAL rate at 5 years.

A cancer where the "treatment" is palliative care -- making you feel a bit more comfy while you die.

I honestly don't remember the next day. I don't remember the next week, nor the next month, nor the next year. I remember working back-of-house one afternoon at Chick Fil A, walking into the dishwashing room, and breaking down crying. Beyond that, my mind goes blank.

From the outside, it's a miracle my father is alive 5 years later. But my family and I know different; my father is alive simply because he wanted to be. And this lesson is, coinciding with my brothers death, perhaps the greatest gift my Lord has ever given. That not only is our time so very finite -- I wish I told my brother I loved him -- but also that sheer willpower has the ability to genuinely manifest (not the hocus hocus type manifest) the future.

Where there is a will, there is a way.

21 day fasts, forcing his way into clinical trials, dropping alcohol, taking hundreds of pills & supplements per week, meditating, spending hours researching pubmed & research papers with our GP & my sister (an MD), hypnosis, a drastically altered diet w/ a focus on meat, and more.

My father did not want to die, nor did he simply wish to live; he demanded that he prosper, and so he does.