Through A Daughter's Eyes: Watching Dad's Valley of Cancer

On January 29, 2017, I recieved a spiritual prompting during Sacrament Meeting in church that I needed to approach Mayor George Bohne that day and ask if I could spread Dad's ashes at Corner Lake. I followed the prompting and Mayor Bohne was surprised at me approaching him so earnestly, but gave permission and also said to let the CAO, Scott Barton know. and I did just that... Scott responded very quickly and very kindly... The weather was crap that year and my mom finally told me that dealing with the ashes would be too difficult for her, as she was still very much healing from the abuse. I ended up having to get the ashes delivered to me and I left them in the garage until I was able to get a friend of my mom's named Mabel to drive me out to the lake, as Mom figured I would be in no emotional shape to drive after doing that, and Mom and Alvin were off in B.C.. Mabel stayed in the car and I lugged the very heavy bag of ashes down to the shoreline, sat on the gras...

My dad got diagnosed with stage four cancer just last month and he wanted to keep things quiet and in the family, but I NEED support since I am the support for both of my parents and I NEED the support to keep me going and I know the Savior is a great support, but I would love and very much appreciate support from people on here too. I know that people may not know how to react to such news, but perhaps compassion, hugs, time, and continued kind words/support would be a start instead of awkwardly shunning us at church and in other public places and making us feel as if nobody cares but God and our wonderful Savior, Jesus Christ. Now, having the unconditional love and support of God and Christ is truly wonderful, but God created man and Christ Atoned for man so that they could learn and grow through opportunities presented. Though my dad's cancer is a terrible thing, it is also a wonderful opportunity to work on becoming what the Atonement has enabled us to become and the opportunit...

Being a caregiver to someone who is dying of a serious illness is exhausting and at some point, a lot of dying people need to go into care of have respite help because the caregiver or caregivers cannot handle the job anymore or they are burnt out from all the work. It is very rude when an outsider refers to the caregiver or caregivers as selfish and disgraceful for wanting to put the dying family member into care because providing the care is proving overwhelming. If outsiders want a say in the care of a dying person, they need to be willing to provide assistance to the family instead of just sitting on the outside and trying to tell the family of the dying person how to manage things. This story comes because my dad's best buddy, Steve Grainger of Lethbridge, visited and during his visit, I mentioned that my mom was tired and thinking of putting my dad in a community bed at Good Sams so she could rest, as caretaking was exhausting. Steve called me disgraceful and rude for sayin...

This October will be 5 years since it happened and I am already thinking about it even though it's several months away. I can still visualize how things went down, as I was there when it happened. I had just showed up at the Palliative Care Unit at the Raymond Hospital and Mom was there visiting with Jim and Jan, my second parents. I told Mom that I had brought supper for her and she came over to look at it. While I was telling her about the food, I suddenly noticed that his breathing had changed and I mentioned it. The room went silent as we watched the breathing become less and less until it finally faded away. The food became forgotten and I sat down on the couch and cried for half an hour before I was actually able to leave. I also kissed his head three times and it didn't feel like him. I then went home, as I had taken the second vehicle up, and I walk in to find one of my mom's friends already there and scrubbing the kitchen floor! I couldn't deal with people,...