Hazel Parsons, RIP

[Ed Mahmoud]

Just saw at the end of the Fox coverage of the Craftsman Truck Series race that Hazel Parsons, mother of the late Benny Parsons, Winston Cup champ, has passed away.

Obituary


Benny Parsons, NBC's NASCAR color commentator, died of lung cancer about two years ago. He never smoked cigarettes. Phil Parsons does play-by-play coverage on Speed TV of Craftsman Truck Series Racing. Benny was a Daytona 500 and Winston Cup champion.

[Ed Mahmoud]

My father, who did smoke 2 packs a day, Pall Malls, despite having an MI at 48, kept smoking into his 60s. Dad quit smoking when he retired, developed emphysema a couple of years later, although the horrible morning cough stopped as soon as he quit. Never did need an oxygen tank. Dad technically died, at 81, of lung cancer, although his first sign of having lung cancer was terrible pain in his hips and legs, where the cancer had already metastasized. Almost immediately, he also became mentally altered, and it was soon determined the cancer was in his brain. From the first severe bone pain, until death, was just under three months.


His sister, now 86, I think, was diagnosed with terminal cancer almost five years ago, what she thought was arthritis in her back was breast cancer that had spread. She has been on an experimental hormone regimen, and her tumors, spread throughout her body, have actually shrunk. She is a devout Catholic, never married because my grandmother suffered a stroke, and is quite open about being totally prepared for death. She is totally ready to die, has had supposedly terminal cancer for years, and still enjoys a glass of wine (or three) almost every evening. I'm glad she is still alive, she is a lot of fun.

[Category 5]

R.I.P