And we continue with our American stories.

And today we're going to hear from Shiloh Carza, whom I got to know while teaching at Hillsdale

College. A couple of years ago, I was there doing a two-week seminar and storytelling. I've

been doing it ever since. And I submitted that every student there had a story, and I was

seeking them out, personal, something about their town, their family, whatever. And Shiloh was a bit reluctant to talk, and she looked a little out of it. I was told she was such a good student, and I was a little worried, and so after the class, I asked her if she wouldn't mind staying. I asked her if everything was okay, and if she wanted to opt out, that was fine too. And she told me that she had just learned that her father

was dying. We talked for a bit and then I said, well, maybe you'd want to write about that.

Well, since then her dad passed, and here it is.

We all know growing up that for most of us there will come a day when we have to say goodbye to our parents.

But nothing can prepare

you for the day your father is rushed to the hospital because it looks like he's having

a stroke. And nothing can prepare you for the phone call from your mother telling you,

it's not a stroke, it's a brain tumor. Nothing could have prepared me for the two weeks I spent alone in the house while my dad underwent the first of several surgeries.

Or for the next two years that we saw him gradually lose his speech and grow quiet as the cancer took over his brain.

There are some memories from those last two years I would rather forget. The words I failed

to say when he most needed to hear them. The process of watching the strongest man I knew

grow weak and dependent. The moments in which I found myself doing things for him that he did for me when

I was little. The sound of the funeral home staff wheeling the body out of the house at

3.30 one night. The feeling of emptiness that came after the funeral ended and everyone went home, and we were

once again left with a quiet house and an empty chair.

Maybe someday I'll be glad for those memories. But not now.

But thankfully,

Dad left my family with plenty of good memories from the 19 years I knew him,

...