Ben D

About Ben D

My Grandfather passed away from stage 4 prostate cancer when I was in high school. He was living in Cartersville, GA and my mom and aunt took care of him. I still remember my mom on the phone talking to him after they told him the radiation treatment wasn’t working. I remember he was crying because they were supposed to call my mom with bad news but instead told him and he felt so scared and alone. I remember him choosing not to undergo further treatment because he wanted to live out his life drinking some beer and sitting in the sun instead of prolonging it and feeling terrible. My mom took a leave of absence from work to travel from Ohio to Georgia to be with him and care for him in his final weeks. He lost so much weight and at the end could barely speak. My mom ended up losing her job because he held on a little longer than her work expected and she wasn’t going to leave him. She filed for unemployment and her work fought her on it and she was denied. Not only is my mom the most caring person I’ve ever known but she is there for everyone when it isn’t pretty and really counts. Losing my Grandfather in his 60s when prostate cancer is so treatable if you catch it early enough makes me tell people all the time to go for checkups because it really is life or death if you don’t. My Grandfather was one of a kind. He’d wake up in the morning, play Dr. Mario on Nintendo and beat the hardest level before starting his day. Then he’d do his daily chores around the house and crack a beer and relax. He never had much money and he almost starved to death as a child because of how poor his family was. He had to quit school at 13 to start working. Even though he never had much he always shared it with his kids and grandkids by giving us money for good grades to encourage us to do better for ourselves. He lived a simple but happy life and never asked for anything. Cancer robbed him of his golden years and I hope that foundations like this one can continue to prevent other families from having to experience this type of tragedy.

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