It was the first and only time I saw my dad cry. I was 15 years old.

He had just hung up the phone. On the other end of that line, 4,600 very long kilometres away, was his own father.

He was in Mexico City. My dad with our family in northern Manitoba. Thompson to be precise. But it might as well have been the other side of the world.

I saw his eyes. I’ve never seen them so pink and glazed with water. I asked him what was wrong?

It was hard for him to say it. But after a pause and deep breath, his voice shaking, he told me his dad was dying. My grandfather.

And with those words, he let it out and broke down. That image seared into my mind. A once unwavering proud pillar of strength. Completely broken. Undone. All of a sudden my fearless superhero seemed like the rest of us. Human.

I hugged him. I told him it would be alright. I told him I loved him.

He left the next day, racing against time to a world far away desperate to see his last surviving parent. He missed seeing his mother in her final days when he was a teenager - a regret he carries heavily each day.

My grandfather died only days after my father arrived. I was comforted that my father was able to see him one last time. But I can’t imagine the feelings he went through that day. They must have been unbearable. I fear the day myself.

I have come to learn that my grandfather died of prostate cancer. He was 75.

Twenty-five years later, I was in the middle of mediating a critical investor’s presentation in Winnipeg, with some of Manitoba’s most powerful people in the room, and one of Canada’s most successful billionaires. The text came across my phone... my dad was just diagnosed with possible prostate cancer. The day I feared all my life has just arrived. Why now? He was only 65.

I held it in. The gravity of what I just read collided with the gravity of our one-shot only investor presentation. I stood my ground as best as I could, and continued the presentation with our CEO. After the pitch, I drove our lead investor to his private plane.

Only after his plane taxied away, and I was alone in the car at an empty private airport, I couldn’t hold it any longer. The flood of emotions poured from me.

Although my father lived in the same country but now in Vancouver, I felt like I was on the other side of the world. Just like my father felt that fateful day 25 years ago. I wanted to hold him tighter than anything. I wanted to be that little boy again and tell him it was going to be alright. I wanted him to tell me I was going to be alright.

Thankfully it has been. Five years later, I am blessed to still have him in my life. I know though that the disease is there. Hiding. Waiting for an opportunity. In him. Maybe in me. Maybe in my own sons.

We need to stop it. Although my story is not yet finished, sadly it is for so many men and families around the world.

But we are determined to keep our stories alive as long as possible. To help those that can still be helped. To put an end to this global killer.

With your help, you extend our stories. A chapter. A sentence. One character at a time.

Any amount counts.

Together we will win. I have to believe.

With everything in me, thank you.