Daily Herald

Mom and Dad were interviewed recently by the Daily Herald, a local newspaper most receive in Utah County. I found out about the published article today via church talk on hope, wherein the article was referenced. Our family is filled with hope, now more than ever - a true gift from God.

Accessing the Daily Herald site, Dad's article was front page. I don't know where it was located in the printed version, perhaps if you subscribe, you could send a hard copy to Dad for his book of memories. Below is the article for reference, quite complementary:

Sunday, 22 March 2009
Alpine man faces death with dignity
Christie Dalley - Daily Herald

Alpine resident Richard Loser (pronounced low-sir) and his family are facing his death with dignity, and a growing bucket list. Diagnosed last October with aggressive and terminal gallbladder cancer, Loser was told he had about two months to live. With the help of five rounds of chemotherapy he is still here.
"We keep adding to the bucket list," said the 52-year-old.

The first thing they decided to do was to have a reunion with his extended family in California. He is originally from the little town of Garden Valley, which is between Sacramento, Calif. and Lake Tahoe, Nev.

"It is a little farming community and a great place to grow up," Loser said. "We had chickens and milk cows and a lot of snow." Loser grew up loving the great outdoors.

Loser and his wife, Michelle, have five children. One of their sons, Cameron, is serving an LDS mission in Mexico City. It was hard to tell him the news. Although he could have elected to come home, he chose to stay. However, the Losers' stake president had other ideas. He worked with church headquarters and received the almost unheard-of permission for Cameron to come home for three days and say goodbye to his dad.

"We found out about it just days before he was to come at the end of October so we decided to celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas all together while he was here," Michelle said. "I called a dear friend, Pam Elder, and asked for her help to put a Thanksgiving dinner together for us. Well, the word spread and soon everyone in our neighborhood was involved."

"We anticipated I would go around the end of December, and we did not want the kids to associate the holidays with my death," Loser said.

The event included Thanksgiving dinner and all their Christmas traditions.

"Cameron loves the Christmas lights so we asked a couple of neighbors to put them up for us," he said. "When we came home from the airport, we came home to Christmas with all the lights shining."

One of the Loser Christmas traditions is riding around and viewing all the Christmas lights. It was only October so this was impossible, but a family in Alpine, who lights a tree on the hill every Christmas called the Lone Pine, has a son who lives across the street. He asked his parents to light the tree just for the Loser family.

"We got to ride up and see those Christmas lights after all," Loser said. "When we got home we found our friends had filled the whole end of the family room downstairs with presents. We cried and laughed and were overwhelmed."

Another tradition was to put up a blanket fort to sleep in and read the "Polar Express" on Christmas Eve.

"Richard and the boys had just finished the basement and I went down and Richard had put up the fort by putting huge eye screws in the wall. I tried to be upset, but I couldn't get mad," Michelle said. They read the book and watched old family videos.

"Our presents for each other were simple. We videotaped Richard reading the 'Polar Express' and gave a copy to each of our children," Michelle said.

That night they were visited by a group of friends they had met while they were in college at Ricks in Idaho.

"We have gotten together every year since we first met," Michelle said. "There were more than 50 of them in the front yard singing Christmas carols. They had come from all over Utah and Idaho just to see us. They had just left when Loser's Scout troop came. They brought a huge banner which said "We Love You Bro Lo." Loser has been involved in Scouting his entire life. He and his four sons are all Eagle Scouts. His troop has had the enviable rate of close to 90 percent Eagle Scouts.

After three celebration-packed days they took Cameron back to the airport. "He knew he wouldn't see his dad again but he was strengthened by the visit and the outpouring of service and support he had experienced from our ward and friends. He knew we would be okay," Michelle said.

Loser has lost 100 pounds since October but still tries to walk for 20 minutes a day. A long time ago the couple had planned a trip to Hawaii for their 25th wedding anniversary which is in April. However, their doctor advised them to take the trip right away. They put it on their bucket list.

"I have a 'pick line' and a pump to deliver the pain medications so I decided to wean off them so the skin will heal over and the doctor will substitute a transdermal patch. You can't go to Hawaii and not go into the water," Loser said, ever game for a new experience. They are going on the trip accompanied by two sisters, one brother-in-law and Michelle's mother for support.

They leave for Hawaii today.

The Loser family is facing the inevitable with quiet acceptance and doing everything they can think of to make life as memorable as they can in the meantime. They both said one of the things that has helped them is the blog their son created, http://richardloser.blogspot.com, to let their loved ones know how things are going.

"We started out and thought we had to keep everything positive but soon realized it was more honest to write what it was really like with the ups and downs."