Cancer

Cancer. What a crappy word. I'm a realist. I know cancer happens. I know cancer sucks. I know a lot of people aflicted with the big C. I know a lot of people who have survived cancer. I am in awe of all of them. It's like a battle--a true battle. They are battle worn, they have the scars--both physically and emotionally--to prove it. There's skin cancer, and breast cancer. I've had both in my family. Both seemed so easy to fix--so curable. A little of this, a lot of that and BOOM--all better. But now it's all different. Now it gets real. My Dad, MY DAD, has renal cancer--stage 4. Yes, it's serious. There's an 8% chance of a five-year survival. My dad has survived so much. He's an amazing guy really--crazy weird upbringing with a fair amount of struggle, military service, a career telephone company guy. He had to eat 10 pounds of bananas just to get accepted into basic training! We've struggled in my 46 years. I remember a Dad as I was growing up that was irritable, impatient, and generally annoyed by me. That's how I felt anyway. They divorced when I was 12--he began a new life and my life got extra shitty. Or maybe that's when my awareness of my lot got the best of me. Who knows. My teen years absolutely sucked. My Dad had a new family, my life was a mess of broken-heartedness, rage, craziness. And I'm not talking just about me. My Dad and I didn't have much of a relationship. A lot of shit happened that really sucks. Finally I escaped to college. Life was still tough, but damn it--I'm going to survive and change my family tree. I joined the military. I'm still sad that no one from my family came to my basic training graduation. It's one of those significant events in your life that no one cares about. It's like a tree falling in the forest when no one's around. I graduated college. My Dad and others came to my graduation party. My Mom and Dad were in the same house for the first time in years--and it wasn't pretty. It was ridiculous. Divorce sucks for the kids, by the way. It tears relationships apart. I could have been Daddy's girl. I may have been, but I don't know it. I married. I remember at my first wedding, dancing with my Dad--he cried and I cried. I knew then that he did love me--and loved me with his entire being. Then I moved to Germany. I didn't have really strong ties to Dad (or anyone else at this point... I was outta here). I moved back. I divorced. My Dad and I started rekindling a relationship--one that continues to build still today. On a work-related trip to Arizona, I met my Dad there, who was also working in Arizona. We drank together. We turned a corner in our adult daughter-Dad relationship that day. He came for visits to my home in Maryland. He traveled far to see me. He and my step-mom came to help me when I had surgery. I had a hard time accepting help, but it was nice for someone to go outta their way to actually do so. We traveled together to see his Mom, my Grandma, in Missouri. I moved to Colorado. He traveled to support another surgery. He was there for my second wedding--traveling far again to support a significant moment in my life. He was my Dad--he is my Dad. My maturity now tells me that perhaps he was always there, but there were lots of factors that got in the way of forging a healthy Father-Daughter relationship with my Dad. I took him for granted; he took me for granted. Here's where it gets real folks. My Dad is fighting the fight of his LIFE. It's breaking my heart, seeing him do this. It's not the physical pain and discomfort--there's lots to do about that. It's the emotional grief, it's the realization that he knows he's sick. And really sick. He has an amazing woman at his side--she's been there for over three decades. She is strong. She is amazing. He is very lucky. Listen, I know no one leaves this life alive. I get that. But I didn't expect this guy, who just this summer was camping and moving non-stop, to barely move from one point to another in his home without support. I need a miracle here--I need more time with this guy.