Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Yes We Cancer

Cancer makes things better. Well, not everything. Some things. ...Not really things actually; to be more precise, cancer does make certain events into much more heroic stories.

Dad gives daughter away at wedding: Happens nearly every day. Father and daughter meet after a period of estrangement: Unfortunately, not that rare.

However, if like Welsh bride Victoria Walsh the wedding has been arranged in just over a month and terminal cancer-suffering father Robert Walsh arises from his death bed to give his daughter away, then you have a story. Similarly, when a daughter and father meet after 41 years it is a wonderful reunion. It is a much more fabulous occasion if, for example, nurse daughter Wanda Rodriguez walks into a room where a man who looks like her is lying and dying from cancer and the man turns out to be the father who left the family when she was just three months old. As if the story needed whipped cream and a cherry topping, father Victor Peraza provided just the perfect epigram: "Wanda, I've met you. I'm OK. I'm ready to die." [Go, Cancer. Rah.]

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