Sometimes it feels like everything is crashing down. Even when it’s not. Sometimes it feels like the whole world is turning upside down. You’re supposed to realize that your problems are nothing when compared to the bigger issues. Realizing this doesn’t help. It makes you feel smaller and ineffective and even more worthless than you already feel.
I can’t fix my dad. I couldn’t make him love me the way I needed to be loved and I can’t cure his cancer so he can live long enough to maybe figure it out. I can’t make him want to know his granddaughters and I can’t make him interested in my life. I can’t make him hug me in a way that doesn’t make him lightly shove me away like my very touch burns him.
I can’t forgive him for never being there and I can’t stop wishing that he was.
For my dad, there is no cure. There’s only postponing the inevitable. Which only makes sense if you’re actually living in the interim. I wonder what living is for him. For me, it means being grateful for one more chance to lay next to my husband watching a movie or playing Name That Song. One more chance to talk to my mom for hours about nothing and everything. One more chance to cause a ruckus with my best friend or rub her back and reassure her as we always do for each other during a crisis. Mostly, it would mean one more chance to giggle with my kids, to tell them I love them, to whisper the incredible experiences they’ll have whether I’m here to witness them or not. In short, living is family and people and giving more than you take.
I wonder if he goes through these awful treatments over and over in the hopes that if he sticks around long enough he’ll actually figure out how to live.
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