I’m often asked if my conviction to cancer fund raising is due to the fact that I lost my parents to cancer. People are somewhat taken back when I tell them that the last straw, for me, was the passing of Dana Reeve to cancer.

Ever since I was a child I been hearing about this disease called cancer, and now 47 years later it hasn't lessened. Yes, it is a tragedy to lose both parents to this hideous disease, but I was introduced to tragedy at the age of fourteen when I lost my sixteen year old brother in a diving accident. That event did harden me to life, but I can no longer sit idle as I watch and hear about more and more people contracting cancer. My brother was a quadriplegic for six weeks before he succumbed to his injuries. Dana Reeve stood by her quadriplegic husband, Chris, for years only to be taken in a blink of an eye by cancer; leaving a thirteen year old son behind.

People ask me how old my parents were when they lost their grueling battle to cancer, and my response is “Too young”. No one should have to witness or endure the kind of torture that my father went through. No child should have to make life and death decisions regarding how their parent’s life will terminate. No parent should ever have to look their child in the eye with hope yet knowing that their child will shortly die from cancer. And, no child should ever have to suffer the indignities and suffering caused by this insidious disease and its’ present treatments. People say one man can not make a difference. Maybe they are correct. That’s why I need your collective help to generate the funds required to accelerate research for the treatment and cure for cancer.

Michael D. Gomes Contractors Against Cancer