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| My dad and I sitting by the water in Santa Barbara. |
Well, 12 months later to the day, and he’s still
kicking! Surely, it hasn't been
easy. If anything – emotionally – it’s
been the roughest 12 months of my life. Please don’t get me wrong, I am very fortunate and blessed
to have this time to intentionally spend with my dad, and have whatever closure
I feel I need; and let him know in my actions and words that I love him. All the same I am weighed heavy again with
recent news of where his cancer has spread.
The cancer has spread to his brain; on both sides no less! With one mass of cancer the size of a pea,
and the other the size of a walnut, we are again thrown another emotional
hit. Consequently, now, the implications
of it spreading to his brain could have side effects like I never thought. We’re talking: memory loss, personality
chances, loss of functionality; you know how you operate yourself – no biggie! As he told me this most recent update, for
the first time in this whole cancer battle, my dad showed a very human emotion:
fear. Up to this point, he had a very
calm serenity about the whole thing – hardly ever showing distress over
it. He was at peace with his life and
what he had accomplished, and was doing things to make peace with God and his
family. But now, I could see it one his
face, and in his eyes – he was scared of losing himself before death takes him;
and I think what scares him the most is his fear of what it will do to us. In simpler words: he doesn't want us to
suffer as we watch his functionality go before death. In his own words: "it scares the hell out of me!"
As the days and weeks have passed since this latest update
in June I have seen these symptoms run my dad ragged. Be it watching my father pass out and
collapse with no warning; be it forgetting what he was talking about or having
to repeat the same answer to a question he asked me 2 minutes prior; be it
watching him lose his train of thought; emotionally it’s daunting and
draining.
Above all of that though, something very interesting has
happened. I've expressed before that
I've tired over my dad’s emotionality. He
keeps his emotions very close to his chest, and it’s caused our relationship to
be that at a distance. By all means,
I've come to a place of acceptance and understanding of why he’s behaved this
way while I grew up; yet I see his walls coming down. It was first evident, when my two sisters and
I took my dad on a father/daughters day trip to Santa Barbara and Vandenberg
Air force Base. On the drive up, as we
weaved in and out of LA traffic, talk of my dad and his time in the Air force
during the Vietnam war became a major part of our conversation. For a war he didn't have a lot of choice in
fighting in or not (you either enlisted, or were drafted) he recalled a lot of
the painful and traumatic memories – all of which he has suppressed since the
war. Memories of dodging bullets and
bombs; memories of explosions; and memories of the ridicule and scorn he and
other soldiers received after the very unpopular war. In this moment as we were beach bound it was
all coming to the surface, and for the first time – ever – I watched my dad get
chocked up and shed some tears over his time in Vietnam. Truly, he held a lot of painful memories; to
hold all that in for decades, I certainly can’t imagine it.
His personality change became evident again one morning. As
I stammered and stumbled to the kitchen (I hadn't had my two cups of coffee
yet), my dad had a sleepless night (another side effect once it’s in the
brain), and was enthralled in a re-run of CSI.
As the episode and plot was coming to a close, I noticed my dad getting
emotional over the ending of the episode.
Totally uncharacteristic of my dad!
In my life, I can count on one hand the number of time I've seen him cry
or shed a tear – and those moments have been a far cry from a TV drama. Coming totally out of left field, and not
having my caffeine fix yet, I wasn't sure to either be stunned and taken aback,
or amused and chuckle at the slight comedic scene; so I just patted and stroked
my dad’s back in comfort, as I said, “it’s going to be okay dad.”
What really threw me for a loop was one morning as my dad
and I sat and chatted on the front porch, he began to express his concern and
interest in my dating life. What?! Something to understand about my dad: there
has never been a time – ever – that he has invested interest in my dating life
or who I've dated. So this little heart
to heart pep talk about my love life came truly out of the blue. Again, I wasn't sure if I should be stunned
or amused; nevertheless though, it was nice to be able to talk to my dad about
that aspect of my life that I've never shared with him. In a later conversation with a friend of
mine, he mentioned, “it could be the personality change due to cancer spreading
to his brain, but it might have something to do with the fact that he’s looking
at his own mortality.” Perhaps he is right; but I suppose I’ll never know;
regardless I treasure the new vested interest.
As all this has been happening over the past month or so,
life has definitely gone on, and I've been wrapped up and preoccupied with many
a things. A new promotion, a wedding, a
baby shower, social outings of summer of a twenty-something year old, committee
meetings and tasks of a Gala, studying and taking the CBEST, helping my two
sisters move (one in the area, and the other to North Hollywood), grandmother
in and out of the ER, helping my brother navigate going back to school have all
done well to keep me and my emotions distracted from the precedence of my dad’s
recent update.
Truthfully, and admittingly, I was a little proud of
myself. Being someone who wears her
emotions on her sleeve (something that is a double edged sword); I was
impressed at how long I was able to evade the impact of the news. It finally caught up to me one night as I sat
around the table at the house of some girlfriends of mine (often called the
girls house – original I know), and the topic of my dad came up (as they all
are well aware of his illness). I couldn't
get two minutes into updating the ladies with the news till the efforts to hold
tears back failed miserably. It was all
I could do to just weep – and I mean cry and mourn. As the tears that I had held at bay for a
month came running like rain, my weeps and mourns were intervaled with brief seconds
of profound silence as the girls just listened to my words in between weeps. Once the update was given, and my tears
started to subside, one friend – Theresa – asked a difficult yet profound
question: “when you pray, do you ask for God to end your dad’s suffering.” To which, I answered, “I can’t pray that
prayer! I know it sound selfish, but I
can’t; I just can’t fathom praying that.”
That night was the first of other times in a weeks’ time my tears would
catch up to me. One time they caught up
to me during a women’s prayer night; and again during a visit to my
grandparents. And here I thought I was
outrunning the emotions of the news! It
sounds awful, I know, to avoid the emotion of the news; but after a years’
worth of this roller-coaster, there comes a point where you just tire of being
emotional.
With this year anniversary of life – if you will – it comes
with a lot of thoughts, questions and new treatments. One: being my dad’s week-long outpatient radiation
treatment in LA to just target the masses in his brain; another thing to
struggle with emotionally. Two: twelve months ago today, doctors said my dad
would have died; and against all odds he hasn't. Not to say that we don’t think it’s coming –
cuz it is – but more to say that, we really don’t know how much longer he has. Part of me thinks his length of mortality has
to do with his trip to Lourdes, France he took with my mom back in January. Call it superstition; call it faith; call it
what you want. All I can say is there is
a reason he’s still around; there is a reason God is extending his life longer
than the twelve months given a year ago today, or even the three month prediction
we were given in January. Three: aside
from the new found interest my dad has in me, and how he has opened up about traumas
of his past; what more will I and other members of my family be surprised
with? What other kinds of closure will
occur as his mortality weighs heavier on him, and he inches closer to death? To that, I really don’t know; but you know, I’d
rather not know, not even wonder, and just be surprised with that gift
anyway. In three words: let it be.
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| On the way home from Santa Barbara and Vandenberg Air Force Base. We stopped off at Anderson's Split Pea Soup - photo opp for my dad! |
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