David D. Hanneman was not going to win his fight with lung cancer, but his story is anything but a tragedy. A new book gives a highly personal look at his final months, and the miraculous parting message he left for his family.
The Journey Home: My Father’s Story of Cancer, Faith and Life-Changing Miracles, was written by Hanneman’s son, Joseph M. Hanneman. A story that started with sadness and a deadly cancer diagnosis ended with faith-affirming lessons from a life well-lived.
“This is the story of how Dad lived with his lung cancer. But it is much more,” Hanneman wrote in the foreword to the book. “Through his illness and the miracles we experienced, I came to see that Dad’s was not just a journey. It was a journey home. Home to God.”
Hanneman writes how he got to know his father well for the first time during the elder Hanneman’s three years of illness. Each step on the journey came to convince the author that there was more going on than anyone seemed to realize.
His father’s most enduring life lesson came during his final hour. Hanneman’s minute-by-minute description of this holy hour will make a deep impression on anyone who reads the story. “It left an indelible imprint on my soul,” Hanneman wrote.
