Some say a single sentence can change your life. I never thought a single sentence on a phone call could change my life forever. “He has cancer and he isn’t going to make it.” While he was suffering I was in my house, thousands of miles away. I had never felt so far apart from someone, alone and scared. When the words registered in my head they played over and over again like a broken CD player. Every word felt like a needle. Each word hurting more than the last.

Cancer, cancer, cancer. The disease that kills 7.6 million people a year. My throat closed and my heart dropped. My brain couldn’t form words and my sentences consisted of short words and gasps of breath. I couldn’t bare it anymore, I broke down. I never got to see him after that. The cancer had slowly and painfully spread in his body leaving him unable to move and survive. Now he’s gone and I never got to say my last words.