Did you know that Fmr GOP Sen Ben Sasse has pancreatic cancer? He has cancer everywhere....

[DFW]

12. He's facing it in his own way. My dad went through that, too.

I could have done without all the religious parts, not because I don’t believe any of it, but rather because I thought it distracted from the best of the rest of his message.

My dad passed way before there were smart phones or podcasts. But as a respected journalist, and one who deliberately chose NOT to color his writing with a religious or ideological agenda, I found his farewell column to be my own inspiration to keep on. It appeared in his paper ten days before he died. I still go back and read it on occasion. I have posted it on DU on occasion. He was diagnosed in January of 2000. He died in November of that year, and did not have the advantage of a quarter century of advances in cancer treatment, nor the privileges a Senator (ex- not withstanding).

My dad passed at a very young age 78. My mom complained that his idea of retirement was going into Washington four days a week instead of five. It sounds like Sasse won’t even see 58. But whether I agree with them or not, I always read through articles like this with huge interest, even when presented by a pompous right-winger like Douthat. This is in no small part because my dad’s age of 78 when he died looked far off at the time. Now that I’m 74, it doesn’t seem so far away any more.