Dearest Ryan and Logan,
Your mother tells me that you guys are very sad that I'm sick. I'm a little sad too but it's not all bad.
As we get older our bodies start to break down just like a car that's been driven a lot of miles. Sometimes both the car and the person can be repaired but some things just can't be helped. Cancer is one of those that we can't do much about.
But consider this: I've lived for more that eighty years. That's a long time and as I got older there were more and more things that I couldn't do anymore and, finally, I caught something that the doctors couldn't do anything about. And we all know that eventually it's going to happen to all of us. The earth is only so big and if everybody lived forever, there wouldn't be any room left for us to live. So then when you got married in the future and wanted to have your own children there wouldn't be room for them. And that wouldn't be fair to you or them. So some of us have to move on so our children and grandchildren can live their lives.
We also don't know for sure what we're moving to. Some people say it's Heaven and maybe it is but nobody knows for sure. I like to think it might be a place of brightness and love and those of us there can look down on the world and keep up with what's happening in the life of those we love. Maybe we can be angels and watch over you and protect you. I sure hope that's what it is because i'd love to be your angel. I'd do my best to make sure you had the happiest life possible. And I won't really be totally gone anyway. You will keep me in your memory and every once in awhile you can dig out one of those memories about something we did that made us special to each other and it'll be like I'm still there for a little while.
And there's one other really neat thing that scientists have recently discovered. You'll learn about it later in school, but it's called DNA. It's a part of our genes which we pass along to our children and grand children and great grand children and on and on. So, if in the future they compared our DNA, they'd find that there's a little bit of mine in both of yours. So, you see even if I'm gone you're carrying a bit of me with you.
I'm so proud of both of you. You both are very caring about other people.
Ryan, don't ever lose your great outgoing personality. It's so great that you like people and are so warm and friendly to complete strangers. If you like people, people will like you. You're a very special person. And Logan, I'm sorry that you won't be able to create your pill to prevent death in time for it to help me, but don't give up. There are lots more people that you can help in the future. I wish that I could have lived long enough to have taken you both fishing lots of times but I'm going to have to rely on your mother to do that for you. And I hope that you learn to like it as much as I did.
I'll see you both down the road.
All my love forever, Grand Dad