Worlds Collide

Dear Dad

There are a lot of things I wish right now.

I wish I had seen you more.
I wish I had had more time.
I wish I’d answered the phone in June, even though I was at work.
I wish we’d finished putting together my desk.
I wish I’d figured out how to put in the light switch so I could tell you I did.

But, I really wish I could have done more for you.
Everything I can fix, everything I can figure out…
None of it helped at all.
All I had were good thoughts and wishes and hopes.

I wish they’d been enough.

I love you, Dad.
I’ll miss you horribly.

Don’t forget me.

Love,
Poe

I’d meant to update more, but I find it so hard to talk about any of it, or to talk to anyone.
Cuz, you know, it’s my Dad. He lifts stuff. And survives near-pounce tackles from his grown children without falling over.

Except – not any more.
It’s really hard to see him like this. Dad was never really sick. He got a cold, sure. He had allergies. But not like this. And it’s only been a month since he got the official diagnosis. And he can’t get up on his own.

It’s not fair. He never did anything to anyone. He’s helped more people than I can count.

Yet – here it is. He’ll come home from the hospital today. (That’s a whole other post. I may make it, I don’t know.) He’ll have a hospital bed and my aunt is coming to help my mom take care of him. She’ll stay until – well. Until.

And this is why I haven’t posted. I can’t function – and deal with this. Talking about it, thinking about it – I just sit in the chair, angry and in tears. So, maybe I’m a horrible child, a bad person, but I try not to think about it at all.

Anyway.

I was packing up and leave my parents’ house. I gave my dad my bear and he hugged it. And then he says “This is your bear.” And I told him, “Yeah, but I’m leaving him here to watch over you.” And then I left. Like I was five and teddy bears fixed everything. But I couldn’t help myself.

Now, for those of you wondering what the hell I’m talking about – leaving a bear to watch over my dad, let me explain. I’ve been putting off this post because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get through writing it. But if I don’t start putting some of my feelings down somewhere, I will most likely splinter into pieces. With my luck – at work.

I went on vacation to San Francisco to see Roomie and her husband. I haven’t seen her in a year and him in at least two. I think. It’s hard to keep track sometimes. They just had a new baby as well. It was time to spend some time. (Baby is cute, by the way. I don’t know how people *DO* babies. With the screaming and the crying – but that’s a whole other post.) Anyway. I flew out Saturday, 31 July. I get a phone call on Monday, 2 August. From Dad and Mom. He’s in the hospital. [What?] Has been since Saturday night. [WHAT?!!?] They didn’t tell me before I left how poorly he was feeling because they didn’t want me not to go. [Amg. Heartattackrighthererightnow.] They were doing tests on Dad. They found spots on his liver. Going to do a biopsy. More news in a few days. Dad calls again on Wednesday, 4 August. Biopsy is back. Cancer. [Seriously? What the FALAFEL?!]

I got home on 10 August. 11 August, Dad asks me to drive him to go somewhere. Not go with him. DRIVE him. I thought my heart was going to break right there. Mom calls Thursday, 19 August. Results from his Pet Scan are back. The oncologist says: “It’s Stage IV.” Yes, that’s right. It’s the worst it can get. It’s metastasized – spread throughout his whole body. I barely got through the phone call with my mom. I sent a text message to Roomie to let her know. And she called me. Of course she did. It was a hard phone call only because I was having issues not being a weeping mess on the phone. (Which was why I sent the text message rather than call her.) I posted a note online to a couple social network places. Freckles and iDave – local friends of mine – offered to take me in so I wouldn’t be alone. Which was good. I played Wii Monopoly and had my ass kicked by Freckles.

Anyway. I know this is a very depressing post. And I meant to do Topical Tuesday first. I even made Fembat restart the damn meme just for that purpose. I didn’t want to restart my blog with this post. But – oh well. I’ll get to those. I don’t intend for this to be *just* a place where I pour out my fears for my dad, though I will be doing plenty of that. I had just meant to get the blog going again before putting up “The Most Depressing Post Ever.”

Anyway.

I hope the internet is having a better couple of weeks than I am.