Today, May 21st, 2009, marks one year since my uncle, Duong Vuong's, passing away from lung cancer... My mom is off in San Antonio at our Buddhist temple attending the memorial services being held for him. I'm here at the restaurant, holding down the fort so my parents can have a day away from work. Somber and depressed, you might ask? Surprisingly no. I think my uncle's passing away has made me stronger as a person and although he did pass away, I know his personality, his teachings, his influences, and everything he gave to me still flows through my veins. All is not lost. I was afraid today would take a large toll on me, but it hasn't. But we'll see how things go when his two little kids come into town...

My uncle, Duong Vuong, we call him Chu Duong (meaning uncle Duong in Vietnamese), was always around when I was growing up. Every since I was born, he was always around – he lived with us. He would go to work and come home everyday, holding a helmet in one hand and the goofiest face slapped on him:

He always played with me and my siblings, took us on trips, and various other outings. He introduced me to Mangia's pizza, here in Austin. He introduced me to computers, how they work, how to build them, how to network them, and so much more. I remember how much he tried to get all of us to play tennis because that was “his” sport. That's when I learned...I'm not so good at tennis! Haha. He taught me so much and added to my arsenal of weird talents.

He was also the most down-to-earth, relaxed and calm guy out there. He never got too incredibly mad. He was very cool-tempered. He knew how to talk to people. He was just a nice guy. I remember one of his co-workers told me, “Your uncle was the nicest guy in the office. Everyone knew him – from the janitors to the higher-ups. Nobody had a grudge on him. Everyone liked him and nobody ever said anything bad.” My uncle was such a nice guy, he always helped people and never asked for anything in returns. He was always there to lend a helping hand.

He was also a family man. He was always around my siblings and I and was a second father to us. He was around when my dad wasn't around. He was always there. He was “that cool uncle” that everyone had. I mean, he had a motorcycle!! If everything else didn't make him cool already, that HAD to make him cool. I remember when I got a ride to school in 6th grade on his motorcycle. Coolest thing in the WORLD. It was amazing! He lived with us up until things started getting serious with him and his girlfriend at the time. When he was getting married, he moved out. He moved down the street from my parents house, not even a mile away! He moved in with his wife and his mother in law. Soon after, they had their first kid, Vananh Vuong. I would visit their house all the time just so I could spend time with Vananh. A few years after, they had their second child, Dat Vuong. Born with a faulty heart valve, he had to go in and have open heart surgery soon after his birth. But Dat was a strong little kid, he fully recovered after his heart surgery. When he was two years old, he would go around to people, life up his shirt, and tell them “I had surgery!” He was a healthy kid and you wouldn't even know that he had open heart surgery.

From left to right: Vananh Vuong, Duong Vuong, Dat Vuong, Huong Vuong

Besides all this, he was the healthiest guy I know. Always ate organic foods, loved his vegetables, never ate fast food, nothing too greasy or fatty. He never smoked a day in his life and he exercised very frequently. He played tennis, he swam, he ran around the park and played soccer with us growing up. The only thing that he had, was asthma. He had issues with allergies in Texas, the oak pollen was just killer for him. So he was on asthma and allergy medication. Other that that one little small thing, he was the healthiest person I knew.

With all of these things taken into account, it pains me to wonder, what he ever did to deserve such a treacherous thing as cancer? He was an authentically GOOD person. It's sad how cancer seems to target the ones who deserve it the least...

I remember the night that it all happened very vividly, as if it was just yesterday.

I was over having dinner with my girlfriend, at the time, and her parents. We had just finished eating and were just watching TV in the living room. All was fine and dandy and then my phone started ringing. I picked it up to see that it was my sister who was calling me. I answered the phone to her cracking voice as she started speaking to me and holding back the tears she could. She said to me, “Mommy says that she thinks Chu Duong is dying...” It hit my like a sack of bricks. I felt my throat tightening up and my mood immediately sank. I grabbed my belongings and all I said to my girlfriend and her family was, “My uncle could go any second now...” and I bolted out of the house.

I jumped into my car and bolted out of her neighborhood. She lived about 10 to 15 miles from the hospital where my uncle was. I remember trying to get to the side of his bed as fast as I could. I was breaking the law trying to get there as fast as I could. I disregarded all speed limit signs, I had no choice. I wanted to get there as fast as I could. That short drive seemed like it lasted a lifetime. I kept repeating to myself, “No, no, no. This CANNOT be happening. This can't be real. I don't want to believe it.” I tried to hold back the tears and didn't want to accept reality. It's hard to accept the fact that a fatherly figure is slowly slipping away.

I flew into the parking lot of the hospital and parked in the first spot I could find. Jumped out of the car and it was a full sprint to the hospital entrance. I ran to the elevator and pressed the second floor button. As I waited for it to go up, the same thoughts ran through my mind. “No, no, no. This CANNOT be happening. This can't be real. I don't want to believe it.”

As the elevator cracked open, I slid through and ran down the hall to my uncle's room. As I got to the door, my heart started beating faster and faster. I slowly opened the door and found my whole family standing around his hospital bed. As I walked in, I saw my sister, my brothers, my dad, my mom right be his bed, and my aunt, his wife, holding his hand and standing right next to his bed. I could see the pain in her eyes...she didn't want to believe what was happening either.

I looked at my uncle lying in bed and I could see in his eyes, that things were not going to turn out well. He lied there all weak, he couldn't move his arms. He was completely motionless and his hand was off the bed, being embraced in my aunt's. Everyone else in the room started praying. We put our hands together and repeated over and over “Nam mo a di da phat.” A prayer we always say in dire times like this.

I held my hands together and just watched my uncle as he gasped for air. Nothing moved except for his chest, as I watched rise up and down every breath he took. It was the most painful thing I had ever seen in my whole life. I knew that there was absolutely nothing I could do except pray and hope that when he goes, he goes painlessly... I looked at his heart monitor and watched his heart rate increase. When I got there, it was in the 60 bpm range. By now, it was escalating. It went up to 70. Then 80. Then 90. Then 100. To 110. Then to 120. I knew this was a bad sign...I didn't want to believe it, but this was reality.

I kept praying for him and trying to hold back the tears, but there was nothing I could do. Before I knew it, I couldn't stop... My mom looked at me and saw that I was crying and she immediately said, “Don't cry, don't cry. Chu Duong wouldn't want you to cry. Be strong.” From then on, I put all my will power into holding my tears back. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my whole life...

I kept praying and kept an eye on his heart monitor. I watched it fluctuate as it began to drop down from 120 bpm. Before I knew it, it started to drop lower and lower. I tried to keep the tears back, but at this point I couldn't do it anymore. When I saw his heart rate drop down to 40 bpm, the tears began squeezing their ways back out of my eyes. I couldn't hold it in anymore. They started trickling down my cheeks and I could taste the salt on my lips. My eyes began to burn from all the tears. I looked around to everyone else in the room. I saw my other uncles, aunts, my parents, siblings, and cousins. Everyone's eyes were red, they were sniffling and the tears were really running now. My other uncle had to step out of the room because it was just too much for him.

I watched his heart rate keep dropping and dropping. Into the 30s and then the 20s. When I saw it had dropped this low, I knew what was coming next. As much as I didn't want to believe it, I knew what was next. At this point, there was no way I could keep back the tears. My throat tightened up harder than I had ever felt and my mouth was entirely parched.

I just looked at my uncle as he lied there, his head turned to one side, looking into my aunt's eyes. My mom stood there and kept repeating to him, “Mom is coming to get you. Go with mom.”

His heart rate dropped more into the teens and then...the dreaded “beep” that we hear in all the movies. I heard it pierce the air in the room and all of us were hit hard. It was the worst sound I've heard in my entire life...

I watched as my aunt curled over the bed and bawled her eyes out. She lied on top of my uncle and just sobbed. I could hear her muffled cries as she buried her face into the blanket covering him. My dad then walked over to my uncle and pushed down his eyelids. We all tried to stay strong for Chu Duong, but after watching him slowly slip away, knowing there was nothing we could do to help. It was hard to be strong.

The nurse came in and we pronounced his passing. It was just a little past midnight.

I didn't sleep at all that night. I couldn't believe what had just happened. I couldn't believe that I just witnessed. I watched as cancer took my uncle's life and there was nothing I could do about it.

This whole time, his two children were at home, oblivious as to the events that had just occurred. They knew their dad was sick, but being so young, they didn't know what cancer was, how serious it was, and how deadly is was. Watching my uncle pass away with my own two eyes was hard, but watching and know that these two have to grow up without a father. I remember one day when my uncle was towards the end of his chemo treatments, he was talking to me and he explained to me his reasons for living so close to my parents. After their first home, he moved into a brand new home about three miles from my house. My uncle looked and me and said, “I lived this close because I want you and your siblings to be role models for my kids. I want them to grow up and be influenced by y'all.” He told me about how well he knew my siblings and how he wanted his kids to grow up around us.

Sadly, after my uncle passed, my aunt couldn't find a job in Austin, so she moved back to Dallas and the kids went with her. They went from being 10 minutes away to 4 hours away. It sucked not having them run into my room early in the morning and wake me up. It sucked to know that I wouldn't have those two brats running around the house as frequent. I went to seeing them almost everyday to almost every three months. If even that frequent. They were practically my two younger siblings and now, I couldn't spend as much time with them anymore. I love those two little boogers.

This whole cancer experience has scarred me for life. And I can tell you this, I despise cancer. It has taken so much from my uncle, from me, and from my family. It didn't affect just one person, it affected my whole entire family. Young to old. From 3 years old to 88 years old. It shook all of us harder than anything ever had before. Talk about a reality check.

From that day on, I knew that there some something I had to do to fight cancer. I know hard it was for me and my family. I know how hard it will be for my two little cousins who have to grow out not knowing their father. Dat was 3 years old when he lost his dad. I'm afraid he won't even have any memories of him and all he'll know of his dad are from all the stories we tell him. That's just completely unfair.

This is why I joined Texas 4000. Cancer has taken so much from me and my family I knew I had to do something to fight back. I can't just let something like this happen to us. I know what we went through and I sure as hell don't want other people to experience the same things. Nobody should have to be put through something to grueling. You shouldn't have to know what it's like to have your heart kicked around like that.

So that is why I have fundraised over $4,500 to go to cancer research.

That is why I am biking over 4,700 miles this summer.

That is why I am spreading cancer awareness and prevention.

To provide hope to those out there fighting cancer.

Why do I ride this summer?

So that one day, we can live a cancer-free life. And nobody will have to go through the pains that my family went through.

Nobody deserves that.