TORONTO – A Canadian man who blogged about his battle with colorectal cancer left a final post before he died last week, a message that drew three million visitors.
A day after Derek Miller, 41, died in Burnaby, British Columbia, of complications from cancer, a message entitled "The Last Post" was posted on his site penmachine.com.
"Here it is. I'm dead, and this is my last post to my blog. In advance, I asked that once my body finally shut down from the punishments of my cancer, then my family and friends publish this prepared message I wrote the first part of the process of turning this from an active website to an archive," read the post.
Miller, who been blogging for 10 years, had been one of the best known bloggers in British Columbia. He was diagnosed with stage four metastatic colorectal cancer in 2007.
"It turns out that no one can imagine what's really coming in our lives. We can plan, and do what we enjoy, but we can't expect our plans to work out," he wrote in his final post.
"I think and hope that's what my daughters can take from my disease and death. And that my wonderful, amazing wife Airdrie can see too. Not that they could die any day, but that they should pursue what they enjoy, and what stimulates their minds, as much as possibleso they can be ready for opportunities, as well as not disappointed when things go sideways, as they inevitably do."
Miller's post-mortem message May 4 went viral, drawing 143 comments and causing the site to crash.
"While we all knew this was coming, and Derek did such a great job preparing us and showing us strength and realism in the face of death, I'm still having a hard time processing the news," commented friend and fellow blogger Mark Bevis.
Miller wore many hats in his lifetime. He had a marine biologist degree, but had worked as a writer and editor since the 1980s. He was also a musician and photographer.
In his blog's bio section, he wrote that he discovered his cancer was terminal late in 2010 and that he expected it to kill him sometime in 2011 or early 2012.
The father of two tween girls blogged about everything from getting his voice back to sipping cherry cola at 3 a.m. in his hospital bed to his realization that death is impending.
In a post entitled "A wondrous place" Miller wrote, "The world, indeed the whole universe, is a beautiful, astonishing, wondrous place. There is always more to find out. I don't look back and regret anything, and I hope my family can find a way to do the same."
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