Julie B.

About Julie B.

My dad, Norman Reynolds Dodson, was a Prostate cancer fighter who unfortunately lost his battle with the disease in October 2015 at the age of 69. If you looked up the word fighter in the dictionary you would see my dads face. He went from fighting in Vietnam, to fighting along side my mom during her battle with cancer, to losing her in 1997 and raising my brother (13) and me (10) as a single parent, to fighting his own battles with cancer; and yet he still managed to wake up every single day with a smile on his face and an amazing outlook on life. The power of positivity was an incredible form of medicine for him. I will never forget him telling me to go to the “church of positive thinking” whenever I was down. That’s what got him through all of his hardships, and that has helped me get through mine.

Up until the last few months of his life, you would never have known he was sick. The first four years or so of battling the disease life moved on as normal. He rarely spoke about it because he didn’t want people feeling sorry for him, he always had a smile on his face, and he lived life to the fullest. Dad was happy as can be and never let the cancer get him down or stop him from doing what he wanted on a daily basis. He enjoyed working on his hot rod cars, traveling with my stepmom Leslie, playing with his dog Dave, and working with the Veterans Association.

Even through his last few months, when the chemo, radiation, and various drugs really started taking a toll, when you walked into the room and saw him he always had a huge smile on his face and said “today is a great day to be alive”. The last time I heard him say that was on my wedding day. Scott and I were planning on getting married in June 2016 but we knew my dad wasn’t going to make it. So we changed up our plans, moved up the wedding, and got married in his living room. It was a beautiful and sunny day in Palm Springs, it was perfect.

Dad passed away 10 days later.

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