"I had grown accustomed to seeing death through medical eyes; my father's cancer forced me to experience terminal illness from the vantage point of a patient's family. Furthermore, through my father's eyes, I glimpsed dying from the point of view of a person living in the shadow of death. Dad's dying was certainly not the happiest time in our family's life, but as a family we had never been more intimate, more open, or more openly loving. His illness allowed us, I could say forced us, to talk about the things that mattered: family, our relationships witih one another, our shared past, and the unknown future. We reminisced about good times and bad, we cried, and we laughed. We apologized for a host of transgressions, and we granted, and were granted, forgiveness. Through Dad's illness and in his dying, we all grew individually and together."