Today I am honored with this opportunity to speak about my brother Dan and to celebrate his life on this earth.
Who was Dan?

He was a husband to his wife Janet for 30 years, andhad five beautiful children Dan, Brad, Stacy, Becky and Rachael. In addition there is Dan Junior’s wife Andrea, Stacy’s husband Chris, Becky’s boyfriend Leo and Rachael’s boyfriend Austin. He felt so blessed and happy to have these four individuals in his children’s lives. 

 

He was raised by our parents Bill and Roberta and had four siblings Donna, Bob, Rick and me. Looking backon our childhood, we were truly blessed to have parents and grandparents who had set an example on how to love each other, be compassionate to others, honest and hardworking people. 

 

He was also a very loving uncle to ten nieces and nephews.

 

Dan had one of the biggest hearts and loving personalities of anyone I have ever met. Growing up, I recall at a young age Dan had a paper route. My mother did not want him out after dark by himself. She asked me to accompany him as he delivered the papers. As I stood by the street and listened, I started to notice the relationships and rapport he had with his customers. You would have thought he was part of their family. For instance, he washed the kitchen floor for one of his older customers just to help and never expected anything in return. As he got older he worked for a local pharmacy; one of his jobs was delivering prescriptions to customers. They noticed the deliveries were taking little longer than usual. Well Dan was doing what Dan does best, taking the time get to know them and seeing what he could do to help them out. 

 

As I mentioned Dan and Janet had five children. In 1989, Brad was born and lived for 14 days. On his grave stone it reads “14 days of life and a lifetime of joy.” This tragic loss started a search for the answer ofwhy something so terrible could happen. Also, how to cope with such a loss. 

 

In 1998, Dan was asked if he would like to attend a Catholic retreat called Cursillo. He accepted the offer not knowing at the time he would start to receive the answers to the questions of why Brad, why us and how to come to terms with such a great loss. Well God revealed himself to Dan that weekend in a way that would forever change his life.

 

After he lived his weekend I could see the happiness and peace he had in him. I couldn’t understand what he had experienced. He was literally floating around our office. He asked me several times to attend the weekend. I finally said yes and it changed my life forever. I was raised Catholic, but never truly understood my Catholic faith. So I am forever grateful to Dan for nudging me along the way. He also sponsored many of our family members, friends and clients.

 

Just as he was a young man with a paper route and working at the pharmacy, as an adult he continued loving and caring for everyone he met. One of our clients he sponsored for the retreat had been fighting cancer for many years of her life. We remodeled and decorated the majority of her house except for her bedroom. She was diagnosed with cancer once again. Dan wanted to surprise her and redo the bedroom to lift her spirits. Even though money was tight, he worked nights at her home and redecorated her room. When she came home from the hospital she was shocked and cried. It made her so happy. He stood beside her and helped her through this difficult time in her life until she finally went home.  

 

You see, as young boy Dan felt a calling to reach out and to be compassionate to people. As an adult armed with the understanding of his faith, he would be able to deal with the difficult times he would face. He faced the loss of a business and ended up working at Home Depot. He said, “God has a plan for me. I’m here for a reason.” In a short period of time, he won over the hearts of his coworkers and helped some of them through difficult times. 

 

Then he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The night before surgery he laid in the hospital bed and prayed the rosary, not for himself but for a coworker who had issues at home. He prayed that God would touch that person in a way that they knew they were not alone. After finishing the rosary, his phone rang. It was his coworker telling him for the first time in years they felt the need to drop down on their knees and pray to Godfor help. Dan told me he didn’t need the prayers because God had it, either way he would be fine.

 

In the following four years Dan started a blog andshared his journey with all the challenges he faced emotionally, physically and spiritually. He showed us his human battle with cancer hoping he could help someone else. As he always said, “God still has me here for a reason.”

 

On a light side, Dan had a funny sense of humor, sometimes you could say even silly! As I mentioned growing up and eventually working with one anotherwe probably made the three stooges look serious. He had a way of coming up with names for family members that would be a playful insult. He would send a quick text, make a quick phone call, or kind of slip the insult into conversation and enjoy the reaction he would get. This sense of humor was with Dan to the end. 

 

This is a prayer I sent to Dan the day after Christmas:

“Lord Jesus, your coming in the flesh to ransom us from slavery to sin, gives us cause for great rejoicing even in the midst of trials and pain. Help me to patiently and joyfully accept the hardships, adversities, and persecution which come my way in serving you. Strengthen my faith and give me courage that I may not shrink back from doing your will” . . . I believe this prayer summarizes how Dan lived his life on this earth.  

 

I’m thankful that God gave me Dan as a brother, and Dan for giving us Janet and their children. Dan had written once that he always wanted to be more like me. Today, I hope I can be more like him. One thing I know, Dan was never a rich man monetarily, but he was rich with the love of family and friends. He simply stored up his treasures in Heaven not on this earth!  

 

I would like to thank all our family members and friends for standing by Dan from the beginning when he received his diagnoses, for staying in contact withhim on a regular basis, and for the all the love, prayers and support you gave him along the way.

 

I pray that someday we will all be reunited again withDan, and our family members and friends who have gone before us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

It is with heavy hearts that I let you all know that my dad (fazzaa) Daniel Riley passed away today Thursday March 23rd 2017 at 5:34pm. He passed peacefully in his sleep surrounded by his loving family. Words can’t properly describe the sense of loss that we all feel in our hearts right now. It has been a very long 5 years for all of us and my dad was an angel through it all. He lived each and every day with lots of grace, love, faith, and of course, humor. 
He was one of the most positive people I know right up til the end. The last time he was able to speak he told me that he was doing ‘excellent.’ He never complained. He fought so hard. He found beauty in every day, in every situation and in every moment. He traversed his life, and his illness with such grace. He made friends everywhere he went, and reached out and helped so many people (many of which were other cancer patients). It’s unbelievable how many people he helped despite his illness and left side disability. 
My dad was, and forever will be an inspiration to us all. I’m honored to have been able to call him my dearest friend and father.
Please also check out my dad’s blog, which was one of his main vessels for helping others! He wrote as often as he possibly could, and focused his posts on his life, faith, love, and happiness. http://www.justdannyspeaks.com 
Please feel free to share your favorite memories with my dad either in the comments for this post or directly on my dad’s Facebook wall. 

Thanks so much for your support, 

Love, Janet, Dan (Dj), Stacy, Becky, Rachael, and family

Dear Friends,
As you know, Dan has been battling brain cancer for the past five years now. He has been in hospice three and a half months now since the beginning of December. He started out at home but, after having a seizure at our home on New Years Eve, he was no longer able to stay at home. He and I reside at a hospice home where he has full time 24/7 care. I can’t say enough about how great the care is here and how loving and caring the staff and volunteers are here. They are all amazing people.

For the past several weeks, I’ve been receiving private messages and I have seen that several of you have posted messages on Dan’s wall sending our family blessings and well wishes. We are grateful for both. Many have expressed how much they miss his blog and others have asked if he will blog again soon. 

First of all, we would like to thank all of you for following his blog and thank you also for the blessings and well wishes. We are truly blessed with much love and support from so many family and friends. I can’t thank you enough!!!

I wish I had better news but, unfortunately, Dan is much too weak to continue with his blog. He is completely bedridden now and has been for about a month. He sleeps almost all the time now and has lost his appetite. It is very sad and so difficult to see this happening to such an amazing and caring man who is loved by so many. Even those last two blogs that went out were actually previous blogs that I found in his notes so we posted them. He would ask (a while back) for his iPad but, would just put it down and go to sleep. He wanted to write but, just didn’t have the energy. 

I’m sorry that Dan’s blog seemed to end so abruptly. I know many of you looked forward to reading it. Dan had no intention to ever stop writing. The blog was his passion. The disease took over and weakened him to the point where he could no longer write. I want you all to know that Dan loved every minute that he spent putting his blog together and choosing the appropriate music to go with it. He put so much pride into it as he had done with everything all of his life. It was very special to him because in his mind, this was his job. He wanted to help people and he wanted people to keep the faith and never give up as he never has throughout this horrific disease. He wanted you all to know that no matter what, you should always stay positive and be good to others because life is too short. He always said stay focused and follow Jesus. This is Dan’s message to everyone he meets.

God puts angels on this earth who go to heaven once their job is done here on earth. When I say “angels”, I’m referring to good people. A hospice employee once told me that when her grandchildren ask what she does for work, she tells them that she helps angels go to heaven. I thought that was a beautiful description of what hospice is all about.

We all have a purpose in this life so remember to cherish each moment and never take life for granted and always treat others how you would like others to treat you. 

God Bless You,

Love, Janet

Hello Today’s subject that I would like to speak to is an often asked question as a Roman Catholic that is why we worship our Most Blessed Mother Mary. We venerate her because God Chose her above all others to bring the one Divine human Jesus Christ according to my faith and it was done at great risk under Mosiac and her husband Joseph were then chased by Herods army to kill them. The bibles Old Testament relates directly to the Christmas narrative. It is truly a miracle but that’s God for you. He is always perfect in all he does.
God Bless You. Mary said that to the Spirit that over shadowed her in that moment. Thy will be done. It was at that Point when she began to shown that Joseph got nervous and questioned her being pregnant not knowing that she was still a virgin. So, an angel came to him and assured him that it was true. He believed the angel as well. Amen 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏👍👍👍👍❤️️
All is well here at my English Country side get away. If your home just sitting put on your scarf, your hat and your coat, grab a friend or, a family member’s hand and have fun .
love justdanny

This was written on 2/4/17:

Hello Everyone, I everyoneEveryoneypukohowmuch I love music this song stopped me in my tracks here’s the rest of that personal story it was amazing. knows how much I love music this song is by the righteous brothers and it ismost definitely to me a annoited song. This song could actually be attached to this blog as well as to how a father.should raise his family with faith and family etc. I have been clear about my thoughts in the past that families are all different in their ouw beliefs mine are based in my My my Roman Catholic. Belief.

My last job got me out of bed at around 2:30 am Janet was never a big sleeper and I am someone who sings verY loud n the morning while I was showering  she was like Danny I have to be up in a few moments to get out to work. I literally would be doinmy Frankie Vallie  I had to be at Home Depot signed in by 4:45am Am signed in and I then needed tomeet all of the other associates who were there to eentrr together the building together for safety which to o made since we just needed. to be done for safety reasons Again , they were were very good to my family always. I was working with highly skilled personal that were attorneys out of work who were airline pilots, but, the pilots could not repair their plans because they did not have the money the owners of the panes did not have the money the owners of them ere caught in thee drown ord trend . Downward trend this song is just amazing for this moment inarchitects. They lost their careers and in this momentt aggain based at my Roman CTholifaith. God Bless You All just danny

It’s now Sunday, January 29th @5:41 I have been here in the English Countryside and it was a beautiful day.

The sun was in and out and it was nippy out.  I honestly hope that you got outside and had some fun.  This song is I love ❤️ because of the message God makes beautiful things and helps us all to grow new roots in the sand of this life and the soil will bring us all back to our desire of helping others and finding purpose. Once again. We all have different lives with different issues mine is cancer at this moment some have psychological and some have emotional etc.

Life is always beautiful hang tough.

None of us knows for sure God could call me in 5 minutes and he could call me in 30 years really do not know .i am not Going second guess his plan. I’ve just been sitting hear. Eating my food all day. My family has been here with me during the day. It was awesome.

We thought about making a video for my grand children someday. So, they get a sense of who I was and my desires for his/her life. That would be hard and emotional 😭 for me you can bet that it would be all bases upon my family beliefs of my faith family and faith based on my Christian Catholic Beliefs I realize as always that different faiths see things differently so please do no not take offense.God Bless. Just danny

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January 28-2017,

Hello All and good evening. 🌆 Justdanny here. This is to all of my friends, church members and neighbors who I love and thank for your support love and prayers over the nearly 5 years of my families battle fighting my Glio Blastoma brain cancer diagnosis. Thankyou for your prayers, I am in my Hospice hide away. I will not be returning to my Wakefield home again. When God calls me again until God calls me home. It could be 5 minutes from now and it could be 30 years from now, who knows. I am not worrying that’s for sure. My family are in and out of the hospice house. My old dogs visit me and are roaming around the room looking for a new bone to chew on. Thank you all for your love and support over the many years. I am here for you. Love, just DannySo, the link that I shared yesterday should attach from My Facebook to log to my Facebook properly. Love, just Danny

 

Its, January 21 Sunday at 12:25 in the afternoon and I have always s said that I would be honest about my journey no matter what because changes happen at we never know what can happen it’s been a long time encephalitis My origin diagnosed back Well, the lovely lady Re Re that does all the beautiful things for everyone I told her story and said it was said it’s betewwn you and us and never read it before I actually. Posted it .i got a sense that I hurt her feelings. I feel like my thought processs  I am fining that

Here in my bed feeling well. But, I think that I am startin to disappear in my diss ion making management After always managing my life as a type and multi tasking. That I have done I am beginning to confuse the simplest of things so here I sit telling you that this too can happen.

Today, I am writing this today so that people understand that this too can happen. Again, we planned ahead so My Janet is my personal trustee and health prox. So, if something happens she is all set. That gives me all the peace in the world.

 

Gob Bless You All,

and shift change is do so I will

JThe ory of yesterday here after I wrote what about what a loaf of pumpernickel can do, I shared it and the people were so happy and had it at like every meal. One of the when they saw last night that hot dogs and beans was one option they were all so excited that they wanted it again. The chefs would make them whatever they wanted. For breakfast the chef said Dan, there are a couple of pieces left would you like them I said once again check with the others. First. Have been planning on going home to my families home whereas I left so quickly almost 3 weeks ago. My family wanted to make it happen so each family member. Stayed up and cooked and baked all night. I went down to what I thought was to eat my left overs and my family members were there with all of my personal favorites. We fed anyone and every one that was in the building

Volunteers everybody. There will be a lot of pictures posted shortly God is always giving us better that we deserve. I think the fuuniest thing is this all of my siblings and families children are just like my dad. When he part came t an end and they all wanted to clean the room. They were worried but getting trash bags etc. Meanwhile the Facility manangement was outside waiting . This place is always cleaning and it’s beautiful. Again this is why, I am here. So, everyone came back here and relaxed in my room which was 👍

 

M

 

God Bless You All. Thankyou all for your prayers.

We are praying for you all too. Please special prayers for Myfriends Brian.L and Arthur R. Who are suffering from Parkinsons desease and For our friendlier Friend Deacon Paul fro,m NY. we having been praying for his cousin Louis Vitale and his wonderful friend and colleague B.Devlin both are in End of life Hospice centers and are not expected to be with us here much longer. Thankyou for your prayers and we are praying for you all and your families. When we say a general prayer God answers them ang gives us what we need Always. Love Just Danny and familyAmen🙏❤️️👍

From a Different Perspective: (Dan’s Wife)
#2JustJanetSpeaks_Part2
(My first post was on January 11th)

Good Afternoon,

I guess I will start at the turning point of how we got here at this Hospice House. First of all, it was quite the nightmare just getting the correct information between the insurance company and various hospice homes prior to Dan being accepted to this particular hospice home which looks like a five star hotel. We are so blessed. Somehow God has put people in our lives to assist in these situations. In this case it was our very dear friends from NY who travel here in a heartbeat the minute they hear Dan is back in the hospital. He and his wife have advocated for us on more than one occasion during Dan’s illness. They are both in the medical field so they have experience.

Dan and I have talked about everything you could possibly talk about no matter how morbid the subject because this has become our reality since he was diagnosed with brain cancer back in March 2012.

We talked about topics that no one wants to discuss but, we didn’t have a choice. We’ve already planned the funeral, picked out the readings, songs, etc. together and picked the cemetery…went back and forth about cremation vs burial and so forth. We talked about the collation after the cemetery too. We planned gifts from Dan in his memory for each of our children which was a nice idea we got from another dear friend who lost her husband a little over a year ago. Also, spoke about Dan writing personal letters to each child and possibly making a video for our future grandchildren. We were blessed with the last five years to discuss all of this although much of this was figured out more recently. I had to get power of attorney which we probably should have done years ago but, waited until recently and then scrambled to find a notary to come to our house now that Dan was house bound.

My advice to all of you is, as morbid as it sounds, please discuss what your loved one’s and your own wishes are ahead of time because you just never know….not that I want people not to think positive but, it is necessary to plan ahead for situations like ours. Dan’s illness literally occurred overnight-no warning at all. We are actually lucky that we’ve had the last five years to discuss all of this but, some people never get that opportunity so it’s nice to know in those situations. Don’t put off doing your wills while trying to avoid that morbid topic especially if you have young children who you need to plan for in case of a sudden death. No one likes to think about it but, unfortunately, it can happen. Lastly, make sure have life insurance policies. Be smart-Always plan for the future. Get it done now so that everything is in place and then you won’t have to think about it or wish that you had done it when it’s just too late. Put everything in place and then put it behind you and live your life to the fullest!!!

Among all of these discussions we talked about what would happen in the end when Dan could no longer care for himself….another fun topic! This is also something that we didn’t figure out right away. In fact, we didn’t figure it out until visiting another very dear friend a little over a year ago who was unfortunately also in a hospice home. After visiting there, Dan said to me, “That’s where I want to be when I can no longer care for myself. I want my dignity and I don’t want you and the kids helping me with bathroom issues etc.” Then he said, “I don’t want to die at home. I don’t want that memory for you and the kids.” We both agreed after having experienced what a hospice house was like from visiting our friend. That is what we wanted. We saw first hand from our visits there that it was very peaceful. The pain was managed by the staff along with all of the care and now his wife who had been his full time care taker at home could finally be his wife and just be there for him to help him through and hold his hand. She is a nurse, a very caring person and even she realized that his care had become impossible for her to handle on her own at their home.

We’ve seen both sides-When hospice is at home until the end vs a hospice home. Hospice at home is very difficult for the family even with a small frail person because at the very end, they have absolutely no strength and become dead weight and almost impossible to change or get onto a camode.

Helping Dan in and out of bed and getting him to the bathroom which was only a few feet away, became impossible for me due to the size difference between Dan and I. If you know me, you know that there is a significant size difference between Dan and I…lol!…I’m 4’9″ about 115 lbs and Dan is 5’11” about 230lbs. Dan became much weaker after his seizure on New Year’s Eve-a horrific night for all of us to have witnessed…although Dan didn’t remember a thing. He came out of the seizure, looked at all of us standing around him with the look of fear on our faces and said “What’s all the drama?!” Leave it to Dan right?! His body became much weaker immediately after that seizure-very sad, but, now he could no longer pull himself up from laying to sitting like he could the day before. He normally just pulled himself up using his bedrail but, now he had no strength. When I got him to stand, his left leg would give out and he would start to fall…then he would say “remember I told you that my left knee was bothering me?”, even though he hadn’t said such a thing. I think he was just embarrassed at his new weakness. This was a sign that I was told to look for-additional weakness on the left side….the cancer gave him no use of his left arm and weakness to his left leg since he was diagnosed almost five years ago…luckily it wasn’t the other way around and he was able to walk on his own until now. He took a few almost falls especially when getting out of bed recently-this had become an almost impossible task.

Dan was staying on the first floor of our home in the family room in a hospital bed and I would lay in his bed with him and then sleep on the couch beside him once he was ready to sleep. I couldn’t sleep but, didn’t want to take anything to help me sleep because I didn’t want to be groggy while helping Dan during the night…..Think I was running on pure adrenaline because I wasn’t tired at all even after a full month of barely any sleep. He would get up 3-4 times a night to use the bathroom. One recent morning, I managed to help him sit up. He moved forward after sitting on the end of the bed and began to slide off when he attempted to get up. Now he’s sliding off the bed onto the floor and I’m braced underneath him attempting to stop his fall because once he’s on the floor it is almost impossible to get him up, even with help. (We’ve had to call the fire department a couple of times to pick him up off the floor just prior to finding out that a new tumor had grown and I didn’t want to have to call and bother them again.) So now it’s about 3:30 am and I’m underneath Dan on the floor trying to prevent his fall. He kept telling me to lower the bed…if only my arms were just a little bit longer…lol! So now I decided to yell for Rachael, my youngest daughter (we still have two girls at home) as loud as I could so that she could run and get her boyfriend who was thankfully staying over to help us. I screamed out her name-scared the living daylights out of her because I just yelled her name and once she answered, I yelled that dad is falling out of the bed and I need help-hurry!!!!!….the poor thing was so disoriented! Her boyfriend couldn’t help but hear all the commotion and came to the rescue. It took all three of us to get him back to a safe place on the bed. This happened more than once.

It went from that to having to have one of Dan’s brother’s or my son staying with us 24/7 after Dan’s seizer in case he needed to use the bathroom. We were at the point where I had to use a urinal for him because he no longer had the strength to get out of bed. He really went downhill fast. We were already at that point that we had originally discussed where he was ready for a hospice home. I still felt very guilty about no longer being able to care for him even though that was our original plan. I kept second guessing myself as to whether or not it was really time to go and Dan kept reassuring me that it was. Then it was confirmed by the nurse from the VNA once I explained everything that was going on to her. I felt a little better once she told me it was definitely time and I was doing the right thing. In fact, she said to me, I’m a nurse and I had to put my mom into a hospice home because I could no longer care for her.

We are enjoying and cherishing our time together with our family. I am so lucky that I’m allowed to live here at the hospice home with him.

I wrote this for the same reason that Dan is documenting his hospice home experience…Just hoping to help people if and when it comes time that they have a loved one who may need a hospice home or for people who are preparing for a loss.

Stay Strong-God Bless ❤️

Love,<<
net<<
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I began this writing a few days ago and I am finishing it right now.

I hope you have a great day. It’s is beautiful in the English country side today. I feel well. Tired as always but that’s just life. We all have obstacles but joy is ever present the lining in every cloud is gray.Silver so that it shimmers. This hospice choice is the exact fit that I was praying for and it is so much more. so much more! I am a blessed man.

The other night, as Janet and I were lying in bed we looked up and the moon light was just hitting the angle of the skylight as we looked beyond we saw that the sky had cleared and we saw the crystal clear stars in the sky. It was so beautiful. We were just hugging and she was rubbing my back. As usual every moment here has been a gift.

 

I would not not trade a second for anything. I hate cancer it’s not from God but I love life and believe there will be a cure very soon.

 

Here are a few pictures of my Hospice experience to prove it’s not scary ❤️️👍😁😁