More than month after his brother Adam died of cancer, David Cook says his family and fans are helping him cope.
"I have amazing people just kind of surrounding me from all levels," he said on Larry King Live Monday. "I'm extremely close to my family. I've been able to surround myself professionally with a ton of great people and that's from my management, my label, all the way down to my fans." "The condolences and well wishes sent my way in the last month-and-a-half have been unreal," he said.
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At age 26, Adam was diagnosed with brain cancer. And, throughout his battle, Cook said Adam "was defiant almost to a fault." "The doctors, when they first diagnosed him, gave him about two years. And every time they would give him a diagnosis of a definite amount of time, he would always seem to exceed it," he said. "And I remember I took a couple of days off from this tour that we'd been on back in March because we got bad news that it was going to be a few days at best and then, of course, he lasted seven more weeks."
Adam succumbed to the disease May 2 at age 37. Cook learned of his brother's passing while he was in Washington, D.C. for the Race for Hope, a fundraiser for brain cancer research. "I would say the actual event was unexpected, but we kind of knew for a while that Adam was heading in that direction," Cook said. "Now that it's done and it's over with, it gives us a chance as a family to kind of regroup and move on and, hopefully, make sure that, you know, his memory just kind of lives on."
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Cook remembers his brother — who is survived by wife Kendra and their two children — as "amazing, definitely one of my best friends, one of my biggest advisers." Added Cook, "He was important to everybody that knew him, which is very cool."
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Cook said his brother "maintained his sense of humor all the way to the end. And the biggest lesson I took from Adam was that [cancer] never defined him. It was never a character trait or a personality trait. It was just an illness. I definitely think that Adam passed with all of his dignity intact."
