“What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is a story about success. It is also a story about failure to achieve success. Mainly, it is about redefining success.

So you’ve got it packed down. You achieved a PhD with four grueling years of hard work and dedication. You have climbed the corporate ladder, as a woman I may add, and you hold a managerial position with thirty employees under your wing. You are happily married with two wonderfully bright children (due in part to your large consumption of walnuts and fish oil while pregnant), who excel in everything. You own your house; the mortgage is paid off, your husband is a successful ‘corporate type’ who owns his business and travels around the world, your house is the size of football field, the fence is white, you volunteer and are generally liked by everyone that you meet. In all instances of modern day definitions of success, you are a highly successful person. You may even be on the Forbes list, God only knows. You are successful in this world and that is the end of that story.

My father died of cancer. He put up an incredible fight until the very end, and I watched him battle this terrible disease that ravaged him physically, mentally and emotionally, and as a man of faith, he said his last rites, preparing for the inevitable. My father died of cancer. I…