Wednesday, August 1, 2018

How my father's cancer affected me. And why his recovery didn't.

Cancer is one of those words that no one like to say, hear or think about. There's an underlying evil surrounding the word, whenever you hear someone has it you imagined death standing behind them. Scythe in hand, big ominous smile, red eyes piercing your soul and the world turns grey.

It's rare to catch a death in a hesitant state like that. I've dealt with death before, but it had always been with his magnificently executed, and already done, handy work. Never saw her actually in action. It's almost attractive watching it. My father was diagnosed with cancer a few month ago and the second I heard that I saw her. Death looked at me

It was so odd, I've always viewed death as a pertinacious force. Comes, reaps, smiles, nods and leaves. When she nods, you nod back in respect. But this time it just lurked.. almost precariously.

When I heard about his cancer a sense of restlessness befell me. I never even liked the guy really, nor he me. But thanks to good old evolution I'm apparently supposed to be threaten when my genetic predecessor is ill because that means I'm susceptible. Or at least that's how I rationalised being part carefree part depressed. I know, how can you not care and be depressed at the same time you ask. Well I honestly don't know, and not knowing made me feel angry. Not really being as sad as I should be lead to guilt. The amount of sadness I had ended up in depression that didn't really help the guilt. So I end up feeling depressed, guilty and angry.

Not angry at the world or at a fictional creature that gave my dad cancer, there's a perfectly rational reason why he got cancer. Not he the individual, he a human. But angry at my self for not knowing why I'm angry and that's a dangerous slope.

I alienated people, lost some friendships, destroyed relationships.Eventually I stopped writing, stopped recording my podcast, barely made it out of the door most days. Made his illness about myself and felt even more guilty about that.

But here's the great news, he's better. He did his surgery tomorrow and the doctor said in a few months he should be back to his old self, the old self I didn't like and still don't.

When they rolled my dad back from surgery, I was there in the room, I looked at my mother's face and it was easily a 9 on the happiness scale. I swear she looked younger when she saw him. I didn't even need to look at my face to know that it didn't even twitch, my heart told me that.

I watched as the colours seep back into my mother's world... I actually saw her pupils widen and let those colours splash back into her mind. And I looked at death dragging behind him, looking disappointed. She nodded respectfully at the doctor, he nodded back. She recognised that he won a battle, he recognised that she'll win the war. And she looked at me and winked mischievously.

I don't know why she did that, I feel like she wanted to tell me that we have an unspoken connection, like I know that she's there, she's not going anywhere. She just went to grab a cup of coffee and she'll be right back, she'll be everywhere always and forever.

His illness made me stare in her eyes, it showed me the grey. His recovery didn't bring back the colours it merely put them in perspective. I'm glad he's ok, I might even dare say I'm happy for him and my mom. But I've already peaked in her eyes, we made that unbreakable bond, the bond we all try to avoid.

Yeah I'll be back to my old self soon, I'm already writing, planning to do the podcast again, maybe try to fix some of the relationships I messed up. But that bond, that wink she threw me... that'll live with me until it's time for our date.           

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