The Personal Why
by John J.

The way I write, this could get either sad, depressing, or morbid. So if you don't like any of those, just trust me when I say i'm really dedicated to this charity for personal reasons...

 

John J. Sr.
[1952 - 2009]

I certainly wouldn't call my life perfect in any way, but up until the last year or so it's definitely been turned upside-down and inside-out. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always loved my family. In the early days everything seemed perfect, like the American Dream... then in 1991 my mother died rather tragically. I won't go into details about that day, but amongst family members and friends, there was one person who was there with me through thick and thin... my father.

Throughout the years, my father was a big influence on my life. Sure, he wasn’t perfect… we had our differences more than a few times. I remember one time where we got into an argument that resulted in us not talking to each other for four months. It was stupid, and in retrospect I wish I could get those four months back, but we made up and continued on as we had.

I can honestly say, despite his claims or hopes that he could have been a better father, he couldn’t have been more to me. He was my best friend and my teacher in many ways. We spent many a time going out to the movies, watching wrestling both on TV and live at arenas, going to music events… he loved the Beatles, Eric Clapton, and many others in the Classic Rock genre.

Around late 2006 my father started having problems speaking, which we all thought was laryngitis. It turned out that he had developed cancer in his larynx. After being given false hope at a hospital in New Jersey that guaranteed a "95% recovery rate," we took my father to Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York City. The hospital (which is one of the most well-known cancer hospitals in the world) made several attempts to cut the cancer out and make sure it would not come back.

In November 2008, my father announced to my family and myself that he had an estimated six months left to live. Afterwards, we learned that there may still have been one chance left in an experimental chemotherapy that may help him. Despite helping repel the cancer a bit, shortly after his first treatment he needed a trach and feeding tube installed as he had with his previous surgeries. It only got worse from there, the surgery also caused him a stroke from which he mostly recovered from (minus his left arm.)

In April of last year we learned from the doctors that the experimental chemo wasn’t helping and was switched to regular chemo (which the first time he had it nearly killed him.) Later that month we learned that not even regular chemo would help and that it was only a matter of time. On June 21st (Father’s Day) my father lost the fight and left this world with a single tear in his eye.

Of course things have been rather hard on my family. I’ve been trying to keep my wits about me (with quite a bit of failure on that end.) I don’t believe I’ve fully accepted everything, but I know one thing… cancer sucks. I’m in no way any type of person to preach, but firstly smoking definitely kills. We’ll never know if it was directly the cause, but my father smoked most of his life and I’m sure somehow it attributed.

At any rate, this is why we’ve decided on Oral, Head, and Neck Cancer Awareness… for my father, as well as anyone else who has or is fighting the disease. People like film-critic Roger Ebert who no longer has a lower jaw, or former wrestling manager and announcer Bobby "The Brain" Heenan, or even actor Yul Brynner, who the foundation had been named for originally, and in a very famous TV commercial following his death, told people "Don’t smoke."

It's my hope that everyone who loves [adult swim] can come and participate or donate in some form for this event.