Ten Years Ago - Age Eighteen

Less than a month into the first semester of college and it was possible I might have to drop out. I watched the leaves just beginning to change from my bedroom window. A beautiful death in yellow and orange and red. Some were starting to fall already, as if a prelude to the news we'd received today.

He had cancer. My dear, sweet Daddy. Daddy who had never done anything wrong in his entire life except smoke those damn cigarettes. He'd quit, for me, ...