My Dad is No Longer Physical

I’m okay most of the time, but then I’ll be hit with this big emotional wave of sadness that my father is no longer alive, here in this physical world. It’s like I’m looking at the shoreline with my feet just in the water and then I’m pummelled by a huge wave and I get whirled around in the sand and have to make it back up again. It makes me so sad and I start to cry and all I can do is think of his big smile, his all encompassing hug, and his natural charisma. I think of the way he would kiss my forehead and tell me he loved me. I think of the times when he would choke up and even shed a tear when i would be leaving home back to Yosemite, or the Grand Canyon, or Brazil, or Australia. I feel like I was always leaving. I had to though.

My emotional heart feels so heavy, and my throat feels all blocked. I have tears streaming down my face as I type this. I feel such despair. I can’t call him on the phone and just talk to him anymore. I can write him letters and post them but he’ll never actually read them. This feels makes me feel so sad. 60 is so young. I’ve only just started my own family. I want to have him there so I can talk to him and grow in this way with him, as me a mother and him a grandfather to my son. I cannot help but think of all the things we cannot do together, all the memories that we can no longer make together, they have all come to an end.

Now he lives just in my minds eye, in my heart, in my body, in my cells, he lives within me.

Dad and Health

An emergency message

never good to get

call me, we need to talk

it’s not good

he fell a week ago

hasn’t gone to hospital

until now.

Scans, MRI, Biopsy

It’s been years since he’s been in.

Truth is he’s sick

he’s been sick for a while

He’s ignored it.

We have too.

It’s easier to ignore it than confront it sometimes.

This time it’s gone much further.

I’ve been trying to call him, to talk to him for months and months.

He’s been out of reach

no phone

out of reach.

Now it’s an emergency

masses in his body

around his lungs

around his heart

in his lymph nodes

in his brain

oh fuck.

he has to be in pain

and this is what pains me the most

i also feel bad that we haven’t kept in contact

he isn’t much of a letter writer

and doesn’t really do the whole internet thing

and doesn’t seem to have a phone

so the only way I know would be to actually show up

on his doorstep

hoping that is still where he is.

Even if we haven’t talked since we told him that we were expecting a baby

about a year ago now

I still wouldn’t ever want anyone to be in pain

especially not those that I love

especially not my family and close friends.

My sister said he was all choked up when she came back into his hospital room after we hung up

I could hear the strain in his voice, he couldn’t even say I love you back

and it was killing him and I could hear it and I couldn’t do anything

I was bawling and I didn’t want him to know that either

this pains me too.

My father has always been a very strong man, stubbornly strong

and even now he is still that way.

There is a part of me that feels like I need to come to grips with the fact that my father will likely die, soon. The other part of me is asking should I still hold onto threads of hope that he will somehow make it through this? With hope that the doctors will be able to reduce and remove the masses in his brain without majorly affecting him, that he will then be able to continue living his life. That he would then go through Chemo or Radiation or both to eradicate the rest of the masses so he will then be able to continue living his life. This isn’t about me, but I feel like I need something to hold onto because all of it hurts, all of it.

I live on the other side of the world, a 17 hour flight minimum. Baby’s passport will take at least 15 working days from yesterday. Time is short. Every day, every minute counts. It’s so easy to take life and all of the chances. I’ve been living my life, married now and haven’t been back to visit my family once in five years. I did strangely say that I would either be back in one year or five years when I left the states, I just wasn’t expecting nor wanting this to be the reason why.

He is just 60 years old. He isn’t even at retirement age yet. Not that he has a typical job, he hasn’t since I was just a wee little one. Most others of his generation bought into the work all your life so you can take it easy when you retire at 65 and live your golden years relaxing. However, that is the time when the body slows down, the health issues start creeping in. My dad at least was determined to make his own rules and live life how he wanted to, on his own terms, not saving anything until retirement age, burning like a holy roman candle, a mad one he is.