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Yes, Emma, but a lot easier to be dismissive of the subject until you've had both your parents have cancer & just recently watch one of them spend three years falling away right before your eyes, never knowing how much time you've got left for three long years until one night you get a phone call from the hospital at 5am to say he's gone. Then you take your mother down to see him one last time & both just sit there by the bed, holding hands & crying inconsolably. It gives you a whole new perspective on the matter when you see it that way &, believe me, you don't see it as something to be made light of...

Yes, I wouldn't wish cancer on Ashton, Patrick, or Sam (even if I don't like them).
Cancer sucks the life out of people, and when you see it happen before your eyes, you will understand.

It's the old saying, isn't it? About when a member of your family has cancer you all have it...

I don't think she was meaning to take light of your Dad's death specifically, but the overall issue ... we all deal differently, I guess I fall somewhere in between.

I don't agree with making jokes about cancer, but I also can't continue to only write and think about the process you described above - I don't want that to eat away at me and kill me too. We've all got a dramatic story that hurts us to our core. Here's mine ...

My step-grandmother was sick for the entire 14 years I knew her through several stages of cancer/remission then cancer/remission etc. Then my 26 year old step-uncle, her son, died within a few years after only 8 months of an extremely rare form of kidney cancer. It was really really sad ... more than sad, it crushed members of my family and they used it as their excuse for being sad and not living.

Many members of that family talk about my uncle as if they gave a shit about him when he lived, but during his life all they did was pick on his choices and his hair or his choice in music or the partner he picked etc. He died as I was driving to his house to say goodbye so I never got to but had one of those moments where I just knew what was happening and what to do. I called the doctor, my step dad, my mum, my grandad etc and broke the news about my 26 year old uncle, laying still warm in his sitting room with dire straights playing in the background with his body slowly stiffening. I was 17.

I can write it much more dramatic than that too!! ... the story is sad enough for a big tear jerkin' movie. He'd just built a house with his partner and her 2 kids, he was one of australia's first computer programmers, only 4 cases of his cancer were reported in the whole world ... its a sad, sad story when I focus on the day and way he died. The moment and feeling is burned into my brain.

But in his life, he always taught me stuff about computers since I was about 8. He showed me a cd for the first time and lectured me about putting them back in their case and never touching them. He told my parents to shutup when they nagged me about learning computers when all I wanted to do was draw. He told me that one day you would be able to draw stuff on a computer and that shut my parents up ... its sad that he died before he got to see me get into uni for graphic design, but its lucky he doesn't get to see how I treat cd's these days hehehehehehe

I don't feel sad about it much anymore, just really really lucky. Would I rather he never lived? Hell no!

I just saw The Bucket List ... definately don't recommend it if you don't want to see jokes about death by cancer. I found it a little strange and nowhere near as uplifting as I'd hoped - hence the long depressing post

Uhmmmm... I wouldn't say it's eating away at me & I wouldn't say that I'm perpetually depressed about it. I have found that I'm a lot more reflective about him & my life (we fought a lot). There are sad moments & they're probably always will be, but at least it's only moments now - not a constant...

I actually find it very therapeutic & cathartic to be able to talk about it which is something I couldn't do very well at first but every time I do I always feel that little bit better. I even get a few chuckles as some of the memories come out whilst I'm doing it. I think we're all doing quite well. I spend a lot of time worrying about mum who still has her moments but she seems to be coping.

I saw Margaret & David totally bucket The Bucket List on the tellybox a couple of weeks ago. They said they felt embarrassed for both of the male leads & that the Morgan Freeman voice-overs were clichéd. They said that they didn't even think they used any of the locations in the film & instead just computer animated them in on the cheap. I don't think I'll bother.

It's a bit tasteless, I think, when people makes jokes about cancer but films like this that handle the situation & look at the humour that is found from inside certainly have their place (but only when they're done a lot better obviously).

I remember years ago on one of Andrew Denton's Money or the Gun specials he did one about the cancer kids & won an award for it & he used lots of humour but it was still very touching. The favourite teenager of the group was a real joker. He & one of the other guys were as bald as a coconut & he once said that if he & the other guy really put their heads together they'd make a real arse of themselves. He lost his fight & dies not long after that but left everyone to remember what a great & funny guy he was.

i heard he's got at least 5 months.

anyway it's about patrick and no-one else.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oKUTOLSeMM[/youtube]

I wasn't. Specifically.
If I didn't laugh at everything, I'd cry for everything.



I agree that's extremely unfortunate Skaven, but I wasn't lucky enough to have parents with cancer. Or even one's without.
You must have had at least 20 years to spend with your parents before losing your Dad. Right? And your Ma is alive and well?

You, at least, got to spend a majority of your life in a loving home with two parents.
Try imagining your life without either of them in it. At all. From the very beginning.
To have never seen your father's smile of pride? Or have never felt your mother's loving embrace?
I believe the idiom "Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all" is apt.

I'm not trying to "out sympathy" you SkaVen, it's just that everyone has a hard luck tale to tell.
So until you know what it's like to be born into this world alone, (which would mean involving some form of time travel, ergo it cannot be done) I'll continue to mock and make light of whatever and whomever I want.

I'm not going to argue with you about it, Emma. Nor was I trying to "compete for sympathy" but merely to try & offer the value of tact rather than the choice of mocking cancer in the same way most people would not choose to mock other people's misfortunes (such as your own).

"To have never loved at all" was the phrase you used. To grow up without any love is unimaginable to me so I regret that I may have touched on an area that is still painful to you. I realise that it must be difficult to have never known your biological parents & I can't imagine what that must've been like so I'd rather not patronise people by pretending I do. But did you not still have a family who loved & raised you & who you still love today? People who have always been there for you & who you couldn't imagine life without?

I'm not going to let my feelings about the loss of my father propel me into an argument about it with you. It's not what he would've wanted me to do anyway. But I honestly do think it's very unfortunate that you feel that way & believe that growing up without parents of you own gives you licence to mock others. I you haven't experienced it yourself, I hope you never have to watch someone you have loved you whole life slowly die before you eyes in the way that my family had done. I wouldn't wish that upon anyone.

You & I, as far as I know, have never had any kind of issue with each other. I thought sharing my experience with you & others on the board would perhaps help show people here that there's more to you than "The Blonde Bitch" & maybe even encourage you to share an experience of your own & actually value the discussion as an opportunity, rather then use it as leverage to justify further insensitivity, but that inevitably wasn't to be the case which I understand is your choice to make.

I have nothing further to say on the matter. My apologies to those who found it all too taxing.

Look, dickhead, you say you don't wanna argue and after this lil' spiel I was more than happy to let it drop, as this topic being on the bottom here for a while will attest, but poor lil' Skaven is aching for my attention.
So...
I was wondering has your deceased Father now given his go ahead to argue with me now? It's what he would've wanted you to do now?
Change his mind, eh?

I sense you're really cut about this and want to talk about it.