This I Believe essay                                                              Niko Spezio 708

At the age of 10 or 11 I experienced a tragic moment.  My grandfather was diagnosed with cancer.  Not just any cancer, pancreatic cancer.  Pancreatic cancer was a type of cancer that attacks the pancreas.  I walked down the stairs and overheard my mother crying and mumbling words that I couldn’t make out.  I came down and my mother immediately stopped crying.  I was bewildered as to why she was crying and what had happened to cause it.  In my life I had never seen my mother cry.  I felt in the pit of my stomach that something was wrong.

I believe that with the help and support of others you can overcome any obstacle.  My mother explained it to me and a billion questions immediately filled my brain.  What is that?  Why did he have it?  I had no Idea how terrible it really was.  As I was crying my mother then said the worst words that still haunt me that the cancer my grandfather had was untreatable at the time and that we could only wait. 

I was so depressed and felling down, so were my siblings and parents.  I am so close to my grandfather and my grandmother.  They are the biggest role models for me.  And when I heard about the cancer of my grandfather, it virtually killed me.  I then remembered that I have cousins and they were the grand children too.  My family found out first because he lives in New York and my relatives live in Florida.

People started calling my house to say they were so sorry and they feel what I was going through.  But no one really knew my pain was so bad that I would cry myself every night. We started to get gift and cards and I felt that there is still hope and that my grandfather will beat this terrible cancer that lifted my spirits a lot.

My grandfather is a very strong man and he is now on chemotherapy which is a strong type of medicine.  He is fighting the cancer and doing very well.  My grandfather is great person and he doesn’t deserve to die like that.