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.]

OMG, He's Alive

When Britney Spears says of father Jamie, "I owe him my life," as she did in a recent Daily Star (UK) interview, there must be ever more inducement for those without dads to seek them out ... assuming they weren't already looking.

Richard Terwin spent 30 years trying to find his dad, although all he knew was the name of the ship on which his father came to East London. He "fell in love," impregnated and then returned to marry the girl in Greece to whom he had promised himself. However, Terwin kept searching, ultimately tracking down and visiting pops in Cuba.

Sharon Emery at least had the full name of papa in her 38-year search. Not that she had much else in trying to track down the guy who didn't even remember her mom, much less know there was a daughter left behind. Still, when they met, "After we both stopped crying" Emery claims," I felt instantly comfortable. He said initially it was difficult, but by the time we left each other he said he could feel a bond and that made my day. It couldn't have gone any better. It was brilliant."

And perhaps to experience that "brilliant" is why John Renehan kept an eye out, even after dad "died." And a good thing he did, as he happened to spot the old man on the telly eight years after he was lost and five years after he was "found" and "cremated." Daddy Renehan wasn't, but somebody was. And so there's one more odd family reunion bringing new life to a child.

Never stop looking around for dad.