A couple years back my dad was in contact with singer-songwriter, author and friend, Alex Woodard. Alex had been working on a project called For the Sender, a collection of real-life letters woven into an incredible book and an album. From each heart-wrenching letter, Alex teamed up with Grammy Award winning musicians to create an original song. My dad had planned on doing a story about the For the Sender project but, in a bittersweet turn of events, my dad became sick before his idea came to fruition and he, instead of doing a story on the project, became a integral part of the project.

In April, just 3 months after being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, my dad and I sat down and wrote a letter to my brother, Graham. My dad had lost most of his dexterity by that time, so I typed while he closed his…