Our father has cancer and I don't know if I should tell my estranged brother

I just learned that my father has lung cancer a couple of days ago. We are four children; two boys (43 and 42) from my dad's first marriage, and me (31) and my little brother (21) with my Mom.

My older brothers' mom died about 15 years ago from lung and throat cancer. She was an alcoholic and drank and smoked herself to death. About five years ago, right around the time he got married, one of my older brothers starting blaming my father leaving his mom for her slow descent into self-destruction. The truth is that she was already drinking so much that he couldn't take it and took off. I heard horrible stories of her passing out on train tracks covered in her own vomit. However, he took really great care of my brothers throughout the ordeal, he's a very loving and doting father - who can be a tad overbearing, but is always there for us.

During the past 5 years, my other siblings and I tried to reconcile my dad and my brother, but to no avail. He's become a really nasty person who says horrible things about my Dad, so we stopped having contact with him. During that time, my Dad got pretty sick a couple of times; he had to have part of his colon removed after getting septiscemia; and an artery in his leg had to be replaced by a graft because it was blocked. Both times it was a life and death situation, and my oldest brother tried to talk our estranged brother into reconciling with my Dad - but he wouldn't. He went so far as saying "Good, I hope he dies". Sad

My brother has 2 children whom my Dad has never met. They are his only grandkids, since my oldest brother is gay, I haven't managed to talk my BF into procreating just yet (!), and my younger brother is just... well, just a kid. So it breaks our heart that our Dad has never met his grandchildren and I know he misses his son a great deal. He's been on anti-depressants for years now.

With the recent news, and despite a good prognosis (the cancer was caught really early), I feel like we should try to reconcile them once more. My Dad has gone through so much hardship in his life, and I really would like to help mend his relationship with my brother. The situation is really unbearable to us, and we want to do something.

What do you guys think? Should we go for it? And if we do, how should we go about it? He lives just one town away, so we could go see him... Any advice would be greatly appreciated.