Editors Note: I wrote this about a month ago and never finished it. Apparently I accidently published it today. Woops. Since its out there, I shall leave it out there.

I'm about to get heavy on ya'll so I apologize in advance. I've discovered that this blog really, more than anything, serves as my personal diary, an ongoing record of my life that I feel far more comfortable writing in public for some strange reason than in private. It seems it's far easier for me to write on a computer to the internets than put pen to paper. Must be the exhibitionist in me. LOOK AT ME INTERNETS! As such, you're about to learn alot more about me than you need to know. I'm writing it all out so I don't forget it, so just so you know this post is way more detailed and long than a normal blog reader should tolerate. The details are fuzzy so I may get some of this wrong. You probably shouldn't read this at all as its throughly fucking depressing.

Seriously, stop now. Or I'll totally bum you out. It's your choice.

Last night I had a freak down of monster proportions.

It kicked into motion when I learned that Randy Pausch, lecturer and professor, famous around the world for his awesome lecture on living life, passed away this weekend from complications of pancreatic cancer. I didn't know him, but he's a kindred spirit. You see, his kids and I are members of the shittiest, miserable club in the world. The dead parent club.

Back on January 19, 2002, my dad was staying with us in New York City, and was out partying at the local piano bar, and got a couple drinks in him with co-workers. He came home that night early in the AM. We had arrived home an hour earlier with a friend in tow who was sleeping on our couch, all inebriated from our own partying. At around 3am, our friend knocked on our bedroom door to let us know that my dad had been in there for over an hour and hadn't come out. I drunkenly sauntered over to the bathroom and asked him if he was ok, to which he responded he wasn't. I walked into him puking blood, lifted his 260 pound, 6'4" frame over my shoulder and did my best to walk him back to his bed, while yelling for Heather to call 911. A co-worker of his, a nurse, also lived in our building and rushed down to our apartment to help. EMTs arrived. Being the guy he is, while coughing up blood, he demanded to be taken across town to the hospital where a friend of his worked, and after signing a legal waiver taking all legal responsibility off the EMT's shoulders, they finally consented to take him across town rather than to the hospital that was 2 minutes away.

His friend the doctor was called, and Heather and I rolled with him to the hospital in the ambulance, as he proceeded to tell me where he had secreted away various bits of cash and bank accounts (secret pockets of cash in his suitcase, among other things), in the off chance something should happen to him before the rest of the family could see him. He then instructed me to purchase a single first class airline ticket on every flight coming out of Denver to NYC so my mom could get there when she wanted to come. I ignored his insane command, called family, got mom on the first flight out and got shoved into a waiting room while the doctors poked and prodded him. That night I was told he had an ulcer by our friend the doctor (who happened, coincidentally, to be a stomach specialist), and that there was some weird growth in his stomach but that it didn't look malignant. Family flew in that day.

A couple days later, we were told he might have treatable stomach cancer. They took half his stomach. A few days later we were told he might have treatable duodenal cancer. A few days later we were told he might have pancreatic cancer. Knowing nothing about the cancer, we thought he might have some time left. We went to a final doctor who assumed we already knew how long he had to live. We were thinking a few years. The doctor, suddenly realizing we had no clue, informed us that he had 6 months at the most, if he was lucky.

The next few months were cruel, painful, fulfilling, confusing, and frustrating. We watched him wither away from the large gregarious man he was into a sickly, thin smaller version of himself. We made him tell us every story of his life that we could get out of him (stay tuned for some of those in future interesting blog entries.) We had him share on video his thoughts as he slowly grew to accept his fate. As he got sicker, I suddenly realized all the things he would miss. He would never see me acting in a movie, or my amazing television series as my famous acting career took off. He'd never see my little brother grow into the man he would become. He'd never be able to really enjoy the success he finally achieved late in life. He'd never get to enjoy his grand kids...

Three days before he died, I flew back to NY, leaving him in Denver with the rest of the family. I figured we still had some time left and I needed a break from all the sadness. The day before he died, the family said it was getting close to the end and had me rush back to be there. I got in late that night, and my sister prepped me, letting me know that he had become somewhat unresponsive, had stopped speaking for about 48 hours and was going in and out of consciousness. I went in to see him, all wilted and broken in his bed, expecting him to be completely out of it. He opened his eyes, yelled out, "my boy!", and held out his arms to embrace me. Those were the last words I heard him speak, then he went back into painful unconsciousness. That moment is burnt in my brain to this day, and I imagine will always be there.

The next morning, while eating breakfast, my mom called all of us into the room, letting us know it was close to time, and we all held onto him in any way we could, reassuring him as best we could, as his last breaths approached, like a fish gasping out of water, until finally the gasping gave way to a final death rattle and his passing. That was almost exactly 6 months after his initial collapse.

The thing about Pancreatic cancer is that its sometimes controllable, if you catch it early. The problem with that is that the indicators of Pancreatic cancer don't really show themselves until its far too late. By the time you are turning yellow and having ulcers, the cancer has already spread all over the place, basically handing you a death sentence. That's why the only people who keep it under control are people who have a family history of it and get regular screenings. And those people are very very rare. Both my Dad and Grandmother had it, so I'm definitely at risk to get it as well.

So when I went to Randy Pausch's website upon hearing about his death, all these old feelings bubbled up and I went into full flashback mode. And then I saw a picture of Randy's kids, and I got all teary eyed thinking about their life without their dad. And then, of course, my mind racing, I started thinking about my new kid and my mortality, aaaaand well, it all went downhill from there, me a crying mess of a man, praying that my kid, Heather and I all don't die of cancer of the brain. (90s are a really boring decade, or so I hear.)

So I guess all I'm trying to say is I really want to enjoy life, and not die, and enjoy my family until I'm really old, and I better not get pancreatic cancer, because its a fucking ruthless disease, that makes whole families miserable. And I'm gonna take Randy's lecture to heart and do everything I want to do in this life because its the only one I got and blah de blah de blah. (I hate being mushy and sentimental, and yet it seems to be in my genes.)

I can't really close with blah de blah de blah, so maybe I should lighten the mood slightly. A dad story is in order. My dad, along with being large, friendly, and intimidating, was also a man who loved to live beyond his means and show everyone a great time. He really enjoyed making sure other people really enjoyed what they were doing. He also was a compulsive gambler. He had given up gambling in the early 80's after realizing he was an addict (seriously, he would bet on anything, even games of pacman.) After he got sick, he decided he should go ahead and enjoy his final days, got a big luxury bus, grabbed my brother and I, our sisters, and a bunch of his old gambling buddies, and treated them all to a trip to Vegas for one or two final hurrahs. While we were in vegas, he hit up the craps tables, all the while demanding that we not watch him. He was adamant that we not see him play, as it was a vice he was somewhat ashamed of.

I begged him to teach me how to play, and after endless amounts of endless cajoling he finally gave in. The conversation went like this:

Me: Cmon!

Dad: Fine, what time is your flight back to NY?

Me: Sunday, 8:30am.

Dad: Fine, Sunday at 5:30am we'll go play craps.

True to his word, he woke me up at 5:30am on Sunday morning and had me push him down in his wheelchair to the craps tables, where literally one guy was playing with $10 stakes. My dad cashed in $3000 (The money in this story is slightly exaggerated as I don't remember anymore what the actual stakes were. But they were big) with the craps table dealer, got his chips, set them in front of himself, and then proceeded to explain the game to me. He put $1500 on the pass line, rolled the dice and doubled his money. He then took the $3000 he just won, and put it on the come line, rolled the dice and doubled his money again. He then passed all $7500 to me and told me it was my turn. He told me to put it all on the pass line and to roll the dice. I did. I rolled. I crapped out. Lost all the money. He turned to me and said, "See, There's your lesson, never gamble again." BEST. LESSON. EVER.