Tell us about family - what does family mean to you?

I think I talk about my family a lot actually. Sometimes I wish they didn't shape the way I see the world or how I react to situations but they do. Maybe if I'd gotten away from them completely everything would have turned out differently. Instead I stayed in L.A. and worked at the hospital where my father was the chef surgical resident. I saw him just about every day and made the mistake of going to him for advice on difficult cases.

When I was a kid my father would tell me who I was going to be. He'd tell me that I could or couldn't handle this or that. There was something about that which made me hate him at a young age, I'm not sure I ever recognized that what I felt for him was hatred until around college. It didn't matter that I was at the top of my class he'd always find a way to bring me down and one day I decided I wasn't going to care anymore. I only wish it had been that simple. His voice haunts me to this day, every decision I make I hear him telling me I could do it better or that I should have done it this way or that way.

The saddest part of it all is that I always wanted to make him proud, even when I knew the task was impossible. It was the same with my mother she'd either side with him or give it to me worse than he did. I always wanted their approval and I can't really remember the last time I got it.

When I saw my father's body I broke. It was part despair and part relief neither of which I was entirely comfortable feeling. When I couldn't get him on the plane it was like the world was pressing down on me and all I could hear was his voice: "You can't even get me home Jack. You can't even get me home."

Family. Isn't that suppose to be made up of the people who support you? I never really had one.