Cancer...

... is from hell. Plain and simple.

This time of year makes me think of my dad. He really was a spring kind of guy. He worked with farmers almost his entire life, so spring meant being busy and he loved busy. He loved to be outdoors but didn't love the cold, so when spring began, it was as if something in him was bursting to be out...perhaps it was being trapped in a very small house with a wife and three kids that made him love spring even more.


Dad had lots of "isms"... things he would subtly pass to his kids. I didn't realize I'd taken them in until he was gone. He would say that sunsets were sure pretty but sunrise was better because you had to earn a sunrise. And, "Don't talk and cry at the same time." He was a crazy fast runner, especially considering he would run with his hands in his pockets and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He could fix almost anything, a trait he passed on to his son. He adored my sister, his first born... thought my brother, quite simply, could do anything... and could draw me into a debate about nothing quicker than anyone. We all got his wicked sense of humor, thankfully. He was more than his ending. That's what I need most for you to see.


My dad's cancer diagnosis came April 19. He loved irony, so the fact that a death sentence was delivered in the season of new life wasn't lost on him. It's crazy how one day he's him and the next he has colon cancer of the liver. And everything is nothing. I've heard people say that when something like this happens, time stands still. For me, it didn't. It was as if someone pulled the days of his life out from under me like a rug. I was forever facing backward at that day, before the diagnosis. To that simple few hours before we knew we would lose him.


I spent several weeks, in my head, fighting the inevitable. This isn't happening... It's DAD, he's going to be o.k. But, like walking up the down escalator, eventually your strength and resolve falter and you are stuck with the facts. He's dying. No cure. Treatment to potentially prolong his life 2-6 months, but he'll spend that time in bed or in the bathroom. Surgery... removal of the GODDAMNED tumor that started it, but images of a liver covered in dark spots... I'm sorry. No hope. No chance. Eventually, hoping is harder than the acceptance. It doesn't happen all at once, it just slowly leaks out. And when it becomes too hard, you have to let go. You want it to be over. He wants it to be over. Then when you realize what that truly means, you are so sorry you even thought it for a second.


During the time from April to September he was dying. To this very moment I've called it the time he was sick. But the heartbreaking fact is, he was dying. He was funny and silly and angry and bossy. He would frequently say, "let's get the show on the road", because he knew he didn't have time to waste. The morphine would make him hallucinate and then he'd realize that's what was happening and find it infinitely amusing. There were days when he wouldn't say much. I know he was inside himself preparing to leave. Wrapping his mind around the thought that every day could be THE day. I know he was scared. I know he was worried about his wife and kids. I know he wanted it all to just stop.


My dad was in Vietnam. For real Vietnam. Kill or be killed. Here he was... 50 years old and it was just be killed. Defenseless. He was alone in his dying, as we are in our births. As we all are at our deaths. As those who love him stood around helpless and very much alone in his death. He would say, "I get to be dead. You have to live through the hurt. Mine's easier."


During the months he was {gulp} dying, there were many beautiful moments of absolute clarity where Dad's voice and mind and heart bore through all other things and found a way to tell us he loved us. You can feel that kind of love. I'm writing this and I can feel it now. There are funny things that happening during that time. There are heartbreaking things and horrible things. There are things that are so beautiful I can't look directly at them. Those are my things. I can't give them to you even here, even now, because I'm afraid it would somehow make them smaller in my head and soul. I believe in a soul, because I can feel mine when I think of that time in our lives.


The kind of love you form with those closest to you when you have a sick family member is as hard as diamonds. It's ferocious and mad love. My mom, Grandma, Aunts, Uncles and dear, dear friends who were with me if only in spirit are forces to be reckoned with within my very being now. Mostly, my brother and my sister and I have melded into a mass of what was my dad. My brother's voice and face and patience... my sister's stubbornness and memory, my humor and spunk are all him. I'm thankful to him for giving that to us and to my siblings for holding onto those things.


When he died, I remember feeling like everything that was inside me was suddenly on the surface. My eyelids felt wrong-side out. My throat felt like it started just behind my teeth. My hands and feet felt as if they weren’t my own. Doing and walking and moving without my willing them to. The filter between my mouth and brain dissolved, often leaving well-meaning folks who had tried to offer solace speechless as I told them to PLEASE, PLEASE just don’t say anything else, because you aren’t helping me.  Those things have mostly righted themselves.  Except maybe the filter.  Even still, my sense of normal is off.  When you lose part of your 'true north'... say a parent or a partner... you never really are fully back to center.


I say all that for this... cancer is a bitch. Be vigilant. Take care of yourself. Get the tests that can save your life, no matter how uncomfortable or embarrassing they are. Walk, run, give, help and support in whatever way you can. However, keep in mind this ‘cause’ has very real people in it. People who are more than a diagnosis… more than their fight… more than cancer.  They are Kelly and Lisa... John and David... you or me.


And for you, you know who you are, who are going through your own personal hell caused by cancer, squeeze tight until you have to let go. When you need to open your hands, you'll know, because it will feel more right than wrong. I promise you will see pinholes of beauty even in the midst of all this. Hold onto those, because they are, impossibly yet perfectly, shining through the hell.