Lance Jerad Pickens grew up in the Shawnee, Oklahoma, area. He has been interested in writing since he was a teenager. He joined the US Navy at the age of nineteen and spent six months on the Mediterranean Sea aboard the USS Saratoga. In March of 2006 he moved in with his father in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, along with his wife and son, shortly after he found out his father was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma. Over the next year and ten months his father went back and forth between the hospital that treated him, MD Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston, Texas, and his home in Pauls Valley. Lance and his family spent that time helping to care for his father. After his fatheras passing on Christmas morning, Lance spent the next six months writing this book, which he has dedicated to the memory of his father.