Hellooo! My name is Kaylie, and I am the one responsible for the creation of this platform and the establishment of the Carpe Diem Foundation. The idea originated from my dad and his story. Not too long ago, in March of this year, my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. It took me over five months until I even began the process of accepting this new reality, and even still, seven months later, I struggle to fathom the idea of his absence. The concept of creating this website was rather irrational; only taking one family meeting to put it all into perspective. It was the family meeting where we discussed completing my dad's unfinished and unfulfilled dreams. I spent that whole night designing, writing, and uploading files but couldn’t bring myself to publish the website. And for the next three weeks, I rewrote and redesigned every little detail of it, stalling, terrified that publishing would mean that he was gone, that this website would become an “in memory of” or a “celebration of life”. The most traumatizing part wasn't the diagnosis itself, or the treatments, or the nights spent at the hospital; it was witnessing this curse tear and eat away at someone who had once been there to protect me from all evil. It was almost Freaky-Friday-ish, the roles had been reversed. He taught me how to walk, then talk, then how to drive a car and now it was my turn to help him do the same, as it is in most people's cases, except expedited in the worst way imaginable. I had to drive him around when he wasn't able to do so himself, I had to refill his glass of water when he didn't have the energy to stand up anymore, I had to lend myself as a crutch to bed after a whole day spent between the couch and dinner table. He stopped coming for dinner every night a while ago, so now I cover his feet in blankets while he lay in the hospital bed that's parked in my parent's room. Times when life seems to pause, my mind wanders, and I can’t help but think “Who will walk me down the aisle at my wedding?” Or, “Who will sit next to my mom when I finally get to graduate high school?” These nights I curl up in a ball in bed and stare at the unofficial, but very official to me, birth certificate stuck onto a whiteboard across my room. It has my measurements as a newborn, 6 pounds and 14 ounces, with a heart enclosing my little ink footprints, all signed off by my mom and dad. It makes me think about the “journey” from then to now. The first fifteen years of my life were the most picturesque perfect moments all strung into one, and all of a sudden, when I turned sixteen that era ended, and a new one started. But this new era is filled with darkness, dreariness, and heaviness, and I wonder if I’ll ever be able to escape into a new realm. Thankfully, all because of my dad, my life has been surrounded by the phrase “Carpe Diem”. Meaning seize the day, I’m reminded to live life to the fullest while I still get the privilege to. Carpe Diem was the license plate of his first car, and it's now the license plate of mine. It was the name of his first boat, and as a family, it has been the name of each and every boat since. The saying is framed in nautical flag form going across our basement wall, in the house my mom and dad built together to perfectly host and nurture our family. The saying is engraved in my brain as a sign from my dad.