“Tell me three true things about yourself.”
If I had to define the parenting style of my father, Ben Sasse, in one sentence, it would be those seven words. I can’t pinpoint the first time I remember him using them, but over the years, I’ve been directed by the prompt many times. After any success or failure, whether jumping with excitement or drenched in tears, my dad asked us to recite three things: one that reaffirmed our relationship with God; one that reaffirmed our family’s unconditional love for us; and one that reaffirmed qualities we most valued, like perseverance and grit.
The specific statements changed, but the goal behind the formula was consistent: Get out of your messy head and take an aerial view of your life.
In December, two hours before I walked the stage at my college graduation, we learned that my dad had been diagnosed with metastasized, stage 4 pancreatic cancer. The following weeks were a blur of extraordinary grief and random crying—in parking lots, on morning runs, in Trader Joe’s checkout lines, and while studying for the MCAT. I’m not sure what the world record is for use of the word terminal in a 30-minute appointment, but I’m pretty confident that between Memorial Sloan Kettering and MD Anderson Cancer Center, at least one renowned oncologist we saw came close.
In the months since (which is more time than early conversations and scans predicted), I’ve watched my dad navigate this new world with grit, humor, resilience . . . and frequent puking in the front yard. But most importantly, I’ve watched him pull out the best weapon for any battle: a rooted worldview grounded in theology.
