In 2015, I lost my dad to pancreatic cancer. My favorite thing about my dad was his ability to love unconditionally. My dad would always refer to me as his egg. The egg was a reference to a hard shell ( strong and tough front) and the yolk is my soft, sweet personality. He always amazed me by how much he could love unconditionally, no matter if he was upset that day, stressed out or a bad day at work. My dad was always the one you could count on for a smile or a laugh. The type of person that can give you a midday pick me up. The kind of people you want in your life. I remember one day my dad and I went golfing. He would always golf on the weekends with his friends, but I had never been. One day he wanted to take me and I went out with my Hello Kitty golf clubs, and he tried his best to teach me how to golf. He was standing right behind me showing me how to swing. I wasn’t very good, so when I took my first swing, the club swung back and hit him in the head. I was so embarrassed and mortified that I had just hurt my dad trying to learn something he loved to do, but he did not seem to care and laughed it off. The whole way home he would make jokes and called my mom telling her what had happened as if it was the funniest thing ever. I know it must’ve hurt, but he didn’t want to make me feel bad. That very story comes up in a lot in conversation with my mom and I when we talk about my dad. It’s a great way to showcase how gentle of a person he was. As it is just my mom and I now, we reminisce on the good times like that one. When you first meet my dad, you would think he’s quite scary, he’s very tall and not a small man by any means. He intimidated most people when they first met him. But anyone that knew him, knows that he was the sweetest teddy bear. My dad never failed to make you laugh, and you would never leave a conversation with him not in a good mood. That just sums up the kind of person he was. When we found out, he was sick, I remember feeling heartbroken. But when he actually passed on, it was something that I never thought could hurt as much as it actually did. He was the rock of our family that held everything together. My mom‘s best friend and the person I looked up to for everything and suddenly that was all gone. You never understand how much something like this can affect you until it actually happens to you. You see it in movies and you sympathize with the characters, but when you personally experience it, the amount of pain and heartache it holds on you is unimaginable and it lasts forever. I will never forgive cancer to what it did to my family, but I can accept the fact that it does get easier. My mom and I like to think of this quote when times get hard, “ It’s not about waiting for the storm to stop, but learning to dance in the rain.” It’s a reminder that you can’t control the things that happen to you, but you can’t control how you respond and react to them.