When 3,500 Strangers Helped Comfort a Dying Man

Unshaven for weeks, Brandon Curtis's bearded face gazes back at him from the iPad screen. He's in Los Angeles Skyping with his dad, who lies weakened from lung cancer and Parkinson's disease in a hospice bed 1,450 miles away in rural Nebraska.

"What if this is our goodbye?" Brandon wonders to himself before capturing several screenshots of the conversation with 63-year-old Brian Curtis.

It's 11:12 a.m. on Aug. 12, two days before Brandon turns 30, and he is waiting for the first available flight to Nebraska. All previous Skype calls now seem trivial to him. Brian has only hours to live, but his son's flight won't land until midnight Read more...