My grandfather’s 80th birthday was a double celebration. With our family gathered around the dining room and a mylar balloon floating above his seat at the head of the table, Pop-Pop ushered in his eighth decade, cancer-free.
He had been battling colon and liver cancer for more than a year, underwent multiple rounds of chemotherapy, and, in stubborn New Yorker fashion, had seemed to come out on top. And yet, exactly one month after we raised our glasses to him being in remission, on January 11, 2020, he was gone.
I was overwhelmed by the unfairness of it all. Didn’t the universe know that Pop-Pop never lost a fight? Didn’t it know that this was the man who attended every dance recital I ever had, wowed my sisters and me…
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5280 Health (Digital) - 1 Issue, 2025