The Stories My Father Told

Near the end, battling cancer and barely able to speak, he said simply, "I love to give."

Tom Judge, with his grandson Max, not long before his death in 2014.

By Michael Judge

My recent conversation with Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, brought back memories of my father in his final days. The conversation was about the war in Ukraine, but somehow we arrived at our fathers’ deaths, and how lucky we were to be with them when they died.

Not long before my father, Thomas Edward Judge, took his last breath, I remember him standing in front of a mirror, his 79-year-old body bruised and broken by cancer and chemo. Taking a boxer’s stance, he said, “Look at me! Bring it on!”

I’m not a fan of the phrase “he defeated cancer” or “she won her battle with cancer.” It may be a fight but it’s terribly one-sided. Mouth cancer didn’t seem to care that my dad was in the ring, let alone how long or hard he fought.

He died on April 14, 2014, less than a year after being diagnosed. 

“This is for Max. So he doesn’t forget his grandpa, and how he never stopped fighting, even wh…