My father died yesterday morning. After 27 years of fighting cancer, the last two years very aggressively, he succumbed; but not without a fierce fight. It took his heart 12.5 hours to stop beating after the tubes were taken out, his blood pressure was steady the whole time and he gobbled up 4 bags of morphine (“enough for a big elephant and a small elephant” as the nurse said). He died as he wished – in a dignified manner, peacefully and unaware. He was my hero and my role model. He taught me how to work (“it’s not done until you clean up“), how to drive and how fix everything from drywall to a water heater. This was a man who while weak as a child still got on his knees to play with the grandchildren in, what would turn out to be, the last weeks of his life. I will miss his special affection for conspiracy theories; “I know the government is tapping our line” – which many have been proven true after 9-11. I will especially miss his sense of humor and sensibility. On my marriage day he told me not to worry “only the first 35 years…