So I think my mind has just decided that I don't like this place. I don't like it. It's not really about the website, but because it's just not the Other Place. Or maybe I've just shot my load with a diary altogether. Maybe it wouldn't matter.
Either way, I plod on, I try. I've always used a diary to record my thoughts and reflect. I should keep doing that. That's a good thing.
The other day, my father unceremoniously announced that he has about a year to live.
So.
How bout that.
My father has prostate cancer. He has had it for a long while. 14 years actually, when I was married to someone else. He started to get symptoms when he was 50, which is way too young for prostate cancer. I remember when he was finally diagnosed, it was already outside of his prostate. I was living in Cranford, New Jersey at the time, in a room with white wainscoting and bright blue walls. I sobbed in the silence to my then-husband, "My father is going to die - we need to start our family because what if he dies and he never meets our children?"
He and I would never have children together (thank GOD) and we never started our family. It was 9 years later when I had Chelsea, and my father was still very much alive and (reasonably) well. His treatments have been ongoing. Radiations, chemotherapy, injections, infusions, pills, and so much more. Every few months, he'd go to the doctor and get his PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) checked.
The last year, though, things have been different. When the treatments finally began to fail, my father began experimental treatments. And then those failed, and then he started having pain in his spine from tumors. His PSA, which used to be in the low double digits, skyrocketed to (currently) 318, and is climbing.
He is starting to die. The cancer is winning, as cancer is so often wont to do. Just a few days ago, the doctors finally said, "We think a year. We're pushing for more."
I'm not standing here saying he'll be dead in a year. But his time is quantified, and it will not be as long as we'd like. And he won't be here 5 years from now. He may not see me finish my MSW. I don't know what he'll live to see.
After I hung up the phone, and after I got done sobbing, I looked at Jon and I said, "Is this enough for you? Do you understand the sense of urgency I've adopted over my life now? Do you understand that there is no more time for lies, for deceit, for bullshit? Life is short."
Life is short.
Every one of us is reading a story. And at some point, we are forced to put the book down and never read it again. The hope is that you can put the book down at a convenient place, when the story lines are pretty settled. For some, that isn't possible, and it may not even be possible for my dad. But that's the hope.
For me, for my family...what do I want him to know?
I want him to know that I am in a good marriage, one that makes me happy and one that isn't full of lies. I want him to know his grandchildren; I want him to die knowing what his family "looks" like.
I don't know if that will happen.
Every one of my grandparents was alive when I graduated high school. In this case, my father will not be alive when any one of my children graduate high school. They are little; they may not remember him much.
That's it. My father won't be alive too much longer...prostate cancer is going to kill him.
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