This is our American stories.

When you hear that music, it's time for our final thought segment, a eulogy, a parting

thought about a dying, loved one.

And this story comes from Willie Lynch of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

A scientist and university administrator, he wrote this piece for his wife's best friend

that had lost her husband to cancer.

And the name of the piece,

How My Father's Cancer Diagnosis saved our rocky relationship.

Nothing stays the same for long.

Things in people change.

Often for the worse, it seems.

But once in a while, very much for the better.

I grew up on a small farm, living a life that I took for granted.

I had a dog without a leash, mountains in whatever direction I looked, and awoke to the call of pheasants in the

alfalfa fields.

My father also worked in the city as a welder.

He was quiet, distant you might say. He was not highly educated, but smart, with an engineer's way of looking at problems.

He was a man made of leather, brass, and chewing tobacco, who tried to teach my brother

and me useful things, including respect.

He had a temper. I did not like him very much.

One day I came home from school and his car was already there.

Once inside I was told by my mother that he didn't feel well.

...