It is undoubtedly the elephant in my room. And many days I don’t feel as if he is just in the room, but sitting entirely on my left shoulder. The pain is just that unbearable. I try to keep smiling hoping that if I smile long and hard enough the pain will just wash away, and take my anguish out into the ocean forever. Hoping no one will have ever noticed.
How does one prepare for this? Is there a course in seeing one of your family members sick. Because I guarantee if there is, I’d fail it. I keep telling myself that if I cry while I’m in the shower it doesn’t count, it negates it…cause it’s all water…cause I AM STRONG and CAN HANDLE IT.
Last night when I left my dad’s house I hugged him, just as I always do when I leave, but this time something different happened. He kissed me on my head. Just as he used to when I scrapped my knee, when I was struggling in school, and when he tucked me into bed with a tiny blue Tupperware full of Cheerios. One tiny little gesture took me back to a gazillion memories, a million flashbacks of when my father was not sick. When he was the dad, and I, I was the child. And as soon as I stepped out the front door onto the step, I wept. I wept for the livelihood that he has been robbed of. I wept for his passions, like sailing, that have been taken right from under him. I wept for the eloquent writing he once so thoroughly enjoyed. I wept for the father who has been taken from me, and is trapped inside a body that won’t respond. I am running out of steam, without the option to give up. I just want my old dad back, I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
Through all these storm clouds that have been lingering, I have learned one thing: don’t take life for granted. Love the ones you love. And love them with absolutely every ounce of your being. Life is just too precious not to.
And here we are: ‘the Core Group.’
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