saying goodbye

Hello guys, welcome back to my channel. Today's video sucks because cancer sucks. I've never made a video like this, it's different, but I thought it was an important video, so here we are, sadly, my dad, Papa Pizza, passed away at Christmas. and for those of you who follow me on social media like Twitter and Instagram, you already know this, but I realized that there are a lot of you who love Papa Pizza and maybe don't know it and I thought it was important to update you and tell you. You and I also want to let you know that I was able to take a month off, it's about a month.

I had stored some videos in advance before the holidays and took a month off and flew to different states to support my family and help out. my mom settled in and planned my dad's funeral so I had a month to grieve and really feel all the feelings and sadness and heal and start that healing process and that's something that I just did privately and I have done. on my own and I just want to thank so many of my friends and family who have been very supportive and done little things to make this terrible grieving process better and I really appreciate it anyway.

I'm sorry to break this news and not this video, it's shit and it's horrible news, but I wanted to make it as positive as possible because that's what my dad would want because that's the energy of him and who he was as a person and to those. You ask yourself? Many people asked me what happened. I thought this would be a really good time to sit down and talk to you and let you know that my dad was diagnosed with leukemia about six years ago in 2013 and that there are different types of leukemia. and he had the aggressive type and we were really worried as a family that we wouldn't even spend a year with him because he tried chemo and it didn't do anything, it didn't work at the moment, it's at the same time as a new medication. that was approved by the FDA which for 40% of the people who took it in my dad's position it was effective and for my dad it gave us six more years with him that we wouldn't have had and I wrote a list of all the things we did over the last six years that wouldn't have happened without this new medication and I just wanted to share some of those things with you all because those are the things that I really appreciate and I'm really grateful for the new medication, my dad was able to walk my sister down the aisle at her wedding.

We had numerous fun family vacations. We went to Hawaii that year, we even celebrated Christmas in Hawaii, not just a holiday, but we got to spend a lot of time. a lot of time together because for half the year my mom and dad moved with me here in California, so we lived under the same roof and we played tons of Romek, but I don't know if you know that game, but that was one of the games my dad's favorite table or board games. My dad was able to celebrate his and my mom's 40th wedding anniversary. They were married for 43 years, but they celebrated their 40th here, in fact, in this house in the backyard.

My sister and I went all out and recreated their original wedding, we even recreated their ugly wedding cake and it was a big joke because it wasn't the cake they ordered so we recreated the disaster cake and we had music, delicious food, all their close friends and family, and my dad told us numerous times that that day the 40th wedding anniversary was one of the best days of his life, he had a lot of fun, he even got to play and play music with his friends. Losing my dad was hard for me because I love him and miss him, but seeing my mom miss him was one of the hardest things because they were happily married for 43 years and were just this example of what a happy couple looks like. and healthy.

They loved each other very much and were very different, but they really respected each other. each other's differences and they weren't perfect but they stayed close thinking it's a mix of happiness and sadness but really grateful that they had each other for so many years that's so rare you meet someone who is so good with you to my mom said she had been with him longer than she had been single and alive, so it's beautiful. One of the last things I want to mention is that he became a grandfather for the first time. I'm very grateful.

After that happened, baby Grayson had a great-grandfather. Dad, pizza interested him in the kitchen. He began teaching baby Grayson that cleaning the house was fun and cool. He taught him how to use Swiffer and now baby Grayson likes to help. to help mom sweat around the house and Papa Pizza was able to share music with him, he played him with his mandolin, our guitar, some children's songs and even made up songs for baby Grayson, he just improvised and played music for him, it was over . Oh, everything. the king's horses these memories are very special, but they are also the most difficult to see because they are recent.

My dad was playing music for Baby Gray a few days before she died, so those are the hardest ones right now, but there are those too. Beautiful memories that I want to share with baby Grayson and I want him to remember for the rest of his life that his grandfather loved him very much and he tried to teach him things that he enjoyed. My dad worked in the aerospace sector throughout his life, but his hobbies were enjoying nature and music. He has played every musical instrument, including the drums, but everyone in my family agrees that the drums were not for my dad.

It's definitely a string guy. My dad liked all kinds of music, but he really loved blues, bluegrass, jazz, but. he introduced me and Molly to almost everything, that's how I grew up listening to classical opera and country, even pop hip-hop music, and I know my folk music, so he always told me that good music is just music that makes you feel something. and it really doesn't matter what genre it's fun, he even traveled to Hawaii over 20 times to go to Google Ailey festivals and concerts, so he even loved Hawaiian music and now every time I travel to Hawaii I just think about me Dad, it's really special place and it makes me want to go to some festivals.

Basically, something I wanted to share is that after my dad passed away, he wrote some words of wisdom and I thought it was very positive and something I really wanted. sharing with you all these are wise words from Papa pizzas, surround yourself with people who have a positive influence on your passions and always play with musicians who are better than you, which was pretty easy in my case, well maybe on the drone , he we all will. Give Molly and me some advice, he said, if anyone ever makes fun of you, bullies you for being short, just tell them what we eat.

We also find out that she gave that advice to baby Grayson. Now I don't think baby Grayson fully understood it, but honey. Grayson may be short like my sister and I so he got that advice too and we found out later that a lot of you have been wonderful and asked me if there is anything you can do and I tried to think of something that would be really positive. and I thought about the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society LLS, it's a charity that my sister and I started getting involved in as soon as we found out our dad was diagnosed with leukemia, their mission is to cure leukemic lymphoma and Hodgkin's disease and improve quality. of lives of patients and their families LLS funds research for many different types of blood cancers including leukemia, if you are interested in donating you can go donate LLS org and on your website you can also put a link to your site web if you visit their website. there's a big red donate button in the corner and you click on it and it has predetermined amounts, but you can click on another one and then you can type in whatever amount you want, you can donate just $1, you can donate $3 or ten million dollars if we have Any billionaire who watches this channel can donate a billion dollars, but I thought it would be something really special and positive to come out of something so sad.

If you can't donate, you can share the link to raise awareness. The LLS website has so much good information that it is a great resource for anyone dealing with these blood cancers or their families or anyone affected by them. I found it really helpful and just wanted to raise awareness and share it with all of you. To give you the update on what's going on in my life and with my family, I'm going to have some fun this year and dads honor my dad, he taught me how to work hard and play hard and I think it's time we start having a It is fun.

I say it while I'm crying, but it's because I really realize how short life is and how much I want to live each day to the fullest and that's what I'm going to do. I love it. Guys, thank you for watching the video and thank you for being there for me and showing my dad so much love over the years. I can't even tell you how excited he got when he ran errands or hung out with my mom. at dinner and you guys were like, "Oh my god, are you pizza dad?" She just brought him so much joy and he gets so excited that he's like, yeah, that's me.

I'm a pizza dad, he was just the cutest and I can't thank you enough. Enough for being so good to him while he was so sick, it means a lot to me, you guys mean a lot to me and I promise the next video won't be so sad, okay, I love you, bye, you know how you know when you're. Are you in love someone has a pizza it looks like dough but these are personal pizzas yes and I personally will eat them all dad do you know any other corny jokes what is the difference between a pizza and my jokes what are my jokes?

They are difficult to overcome. Oh wow, there's no one to cry for me now.