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When I made my last entry, my only regular reader, my grandpa asked what I meant by it. What he said made me realize how banal my feelings were. He told me about the time he was watching the Allies carpet-bombing the factories in Pest across the river. The ground shook as he lay there in the hills petrified when each 4,000 lb. bomb detonated on impact. He was just 14. It's a story he told me a 100 times or more and I can feel how vividly that and countless other wartime memories were etched into his brain. All the fears I hold are mere products of my imagination. His are real.

This June, they found a tumor in his brain. I try to avoid the thought that this might be it and hope he may yet read this one day. I drove to Budapest last weekend to visit him at the hospital. He had just been through radiotherapy and lost most of his hair. Though he seemed to be in good spirit and eating well, the effects of the cancer were visible. He's weak and has a hard time remembering recent events. His thoughts seemed to be centered on his refusal to undergo any surgery, though the doctors ruled that out given his weakened condition. At one point, out of the blue, he looked up at us and said 'that's it, they're not cutting me up again' (last year he underwent surgery and had a very difficult recovery).

Then, the news I got today was not reassuring. I spoke to dad tonight. It wasn't what he said that scared me. Grandpa got transfered to another hospital, apparently to get him in shape for chemotherapy. It's that I can't remember ever hearing my old man's voice being like that. He spoke low, slowly and I could sense that he's only holding on to a faint glimmer of hope, even before he told me about how the prognosis was bad. He's taking it very hard. I talk to him alot now and feel his pain very intensely. And there's something very powerful about seeing your father like that... I can't describe it, my heart sinks so low. I wish I had a magic wand that could make all of this go away.

But we're strapped in for the ride now and there's no getting off...