I thought I had written about a conversation I had with my mother, but maybe I never posted it. My stepfather was very sick and started losing weight very rapidly. As my mother was telling me all of his symptoms, one word kept flashing in my brain over and over again. My mother never mentioned it, she kept going on about things she thinks it could be but always ignoring the word that was scrolling through my mind on repeat like a Windows 95 screensaver.
I didn’t really blame her, because it no doubt occurred to her. My mother may be many things but she’s not an idiot. I think she’s just entering her Pollyanna mode and not entertaining it.
That was the beginning of June.
I tried calling her earlier this week, but all I got in response was a message. “He had his surgery. Not good. They found a mass and could be cancer” - there’s that word - “Dr is going to send him for labs to check cancer markers, radiology is supposed to call by Friday to schedule a Catscan and MRIs for his chest stomach and liver.”
So that was it.
While I can’t say I’ve always gotten along perfectly with my stepfather - his limited views of what “a man” is and how I don’t fit those, his insistent fear that because I was gay I could never be alone with my little brothers because I might molest them, his casual Asian prejudices and self-hate regarding his own Mexican heritage - he’s not a bad mad. He’s a hardworker, he’s generally kind and was a loving father… to my little brothers.
As soon as I hung up the phone, I tried to call Chuckie… he’s the only one with an iPhone, but he didn’t answer. I already knew that Cameron would be off to work because he gets up incredibly early like my stepfather, so I called him via Instagram in what would be the next morning for him.
I asked him how he was feeling. He wondered if I knew everything and I told him, “I got a text message from our mother, you know what that’s like.” So he told me it’s prostate cancer, and even though the family history with cancer is bad (something that hadn’t even occurred to me… but his older sister passed away in the late-2000’s of cervical cancer, and his younger sister had to have a mastectomy shortly after I arrived in Bangkok) they caught it early and he has high hopes.
Unlike my mother, who has to sweat through her performance of not being anxious, Cameron is fairly laissez-faire about these kinds of things, but he’s not stupid, either, so if he’s not worried, no one else should be.
But then he says, “How did you find out?”
“Mom mentioned he was sick at the beginning of last month and she told me his symptoms…”
“You figured it out then, didn’t you?” I just kind of mm-hmmm’ed him, “Did you say anything?”
“People don’t like you better just because you’re right about everything.”
He laughed, “I knew you’d say that! You’re always way ahead of everyone else.”
Despite our frequent conflicts, very few people know me as well as Cameron does.
“I tried to call Chuckie yesterday but he didn’t answer.”
“Oh, he came into my room yesterday with his phone and told me he was getting a scam call from Thailand then asked if we knew anyone in Thailand, and I said, duh Justin!”
Bless Chuckie, he was never the smartest one of us.
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