Lessons From My Father’s Fight Against Cancer
My father has been battling cancer off and on for the last fourteen years. He recently participated in a clinical trial that was very wearing physically, but unfortunately did not arrest the progression of his disease. Before his body had a chance to recover from the clinical trial he started chemotherapy in an effort to beat his cancer into submission.
Dear Dad,
Tonight as I prepare to lay down and go to sleep thoughts of you are running through my mind…. Tomorrow, December 4th, will be the first birthday I will experience without you here as a physical presence in my life and I am not certain how the day will go without your smiling face, your beautiful tenor voice singing “happy birthday” as you try and trick me out of that last bite of strawberry cheesecake that some unassuming waitress brings to the table after you have spilled the beans that it’s my birthday to the entire restaurant.
As the sun sets and night begins to fall, I cannot help but think about my dad. Tomorrow would have been his 85th birthday, and since 2004 I have been able to celebrate his special day with him in person as he lived only a few miles from my home here in Texas. Since his death on December 6th, 2008, I think about him a lot. I find myself picking up the phone to call him and tell him something funny, or share photos from Sami’s skating events. We drive thru the town he lived in and the first thing I think of is “we should stop by and see him” then I remember he’s not there to visit. A year ago, just before his 84th birthday I was considering taking a trip out of town. I told him about it and said, “the only thing is if I go I’ll miss your birthday….but we can celebrate when I come home the next day.” He was fine with that and told me not to worry as he would be here for lots more birthdays. If I only knew that was going to be his last one, would I have changed my plans? Maybe, maybe not, as he probably would have told me it’s okay, we’d have many more days together. By October of 2008, I knew in my heart that my dad would not be here thru the end of the year and I made it a point to spend as much time with him as I could, even though by then, his mind was going and there were many moments when he didn’t know who I was. I vividly remember the day he told me that “they keep putting photos of people I don’t know in my room” and was referring to a photo of me taken just a few years ago. The realization of his decline, his loss of memory and the closeness of his death became very apparent to me on this day.
