I’ve been procrastinating this post for hours now. I didn’t want to write it. I still don’t. I don’t want to confront my feelings. Even though I knew it would happen someday, I never wanted it to be true. But it is. And now, today, it’s six years since my dad died.
Maybe it was because I am an only child and we were a tight knit little family unit, always together, all the time; and/or maybe it was more so because my dad had been in ill health my whole life, but I always had an irrational fear of losing him. As I got older, it became paralyzing.
And then my worst fear came true. Even worse than my worst fear…
When he started having pain in his mouth, at the back of his tongue, we all thought he had accidentally bit it and had an ulcer. But it wasn’t subsiding. The dentist sent him to an oral surgeon. They did a biopsy. It felt like ages until the results came back.
Mom called me at work, “Daddy has cancer.”
No. No, no, no, no, no. NO!
“We’ll get thru it,” I told him.
“That’s the plan,” he replied.
That was April 23, 2019.
Almost two months later, after scary doctor appointments and under anesthesia testing, my dad had a massive 12-hour surgery that would leave him with a feeding tube, unable to make saliva and hardly able to talk or swallow. I don’t know how he handled it all. But he did, and he did so with grace— no complaints, ever.
Radiation, chemo, speech and swallowing therapy, complications and hospital stays. And then, the pain came back.
Eight months after his initial diagnosis and six months after surgery, we were told the cancer had returned.
There was a different type of treatment to try. It was a long shot. A last ditch effort. But then he had an allergic reaction that caused breathing complications. They halted the treatment. And then there was nothing else that could be done.
Hospice at home. A fall that left him dazed. So the hospice nurse offered a 5-day respite that my mom was welcome to. And then his decision. To not be fed.
“How long will it take?” he asked.
On February 23, 2020 — ten months to the day of finding out about his cancer diagnosis— I whispered in my dad’s ear that it was okay to let go, and that night, a few hours after we had left his bedside, my mom called. He was gone.
For all those years I feared the worst, and now the day was upon me.
And it was the worst. My beloved father, my hero, my partner in sarcasm and gym trips, and my friend, had passed away.
Despite the devastation of losing him, given the circumstances—the extremely horrific circumstances, I was relieved that he didn’t have to suffer anymore. No more pain. Finally, peace.
I love you and I miss you, every day.
xo,
Moosie