It was cancer, a tumour in his brain. They unearthed it in an MRI, after he kept having blackouts. 5,187 people died due to brain cancer in 2012, and my dad was one of them. Sitting by his hospital bed, I was not able to find the forte to look into his eyes, because I’m terrified that I will catch the moment the warm glow in his gaze will be replaced with an emotionless, lifeless stare… It was a long road down to this juncture; each step more ruinous that the last, everyone, weaker than they were before. At first I was numb, anaesthetised; unable to consider the thought of losing him, to live a life without my hero. When dad came home with the news that shook us all, when all the cards fell down and the walls burnt down in a blaze, charred
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We weren’t just father and son. We were best friends, and for some strange reason, I was his only friend. My dad couldn’t make friends; my guess was that he put up barriers, preventing anybody from getting close to him. He didn’t have the best upbringing. He spent his youth caring for his deaf and dumb parents in a miniature rundown house. Heavily bullied, he educated himself an abhorrence to people. That everyone except family was the enemy. But he deserved to have friends, people other than his son to talk to and share his life with. After all, he was my …show more content…
The cancer ward was the eeriest place on earth, the hospital knew this was a horrible place and they tried to make it look warm and inviting. Instead the ward appeared forced, like a Chelsea grin. So much sadness in a shell of seemingly jovial walls, it was all a lie. A macabre circus where every act has only a month left… Dad hated the hospital visits, all the talk of how he will die and all he wanted to escape and live what life he had left.
If anything, losing my dad taught the lesson that everything is temporary, how you can never be too comfortable with what you have, everything can be seized from you in an instant. From ecstatic exhilaration to the deepest depression. Everyone else has moved on, leaving me stuck in the tar pit of my mind. Condensed death and despair. He wasn’t perfect in anyone’s eyes except mine. And now how do I carry on, what do I do? Will I ever pull myself over this experience? Will I ever fill the gap my dad abandoned me with?
Some thoughts scare me, and some thoughts petrify me beyond anything else. Topping all of them is losing my father. And although it has not happened, it will happen one day. Nobody can escape death. I know that the grief is waiting around the corner, a behemoth inside me waiting to pounce. I’m not ready to lose my father, and can’t say if I ever will
We weren’t just father and son. We were best friends, and for some strange reason, I was his only friend. My dad couldn’t make friends; my guess was that he put up barriers, preventing anybody from getting close to him. He didn’t have the best upbringing. He spent his youth caring for his deaf and dumb parents in a miniature rundown house. Heavily bullied, he educated himself an abhorrence to people. That everyone except family was the enemy. But he deserved to have friends, people other than his son to talk to and share his life with. After all, he was my …show more content…
The cancer ward was the eeriest place on earth, the hospital knew this was a horrible place and they tried to make it look warm and inviting. Instead the ward appeared forced, like a Chelsea grin. So much sadness in a shell of seemingly jovial walls, it was all a lie. A macabre circus where every act has only a month left… Dad hated the hospital visits, all the talk of how he will die and all he wanted to escape and live what life he had left.
If anything, losing my dad taught the lesson that everything is temporary, how you can never be too comfortable with what you have, everything can be seized from you in an instant. From ecstatic exhilaration to the deepest depression. Everyone else has moved on, leaving me stuck in the tar pit of my mind. Condensed death and despair. He wasn’t perfect in anyone’s eyes except mine. And now how do I carry on, what do I do? Will I ever pull myself over this experience? Will I ever fill the gap my dad abandoned me with?
Some thoughts scare me, and some thoughts petrify me beyond anything else. Topping all of them is losing my father. And although it has not happened, it will happen one day. Nobody can escape death. I know that the grief is waiting around the corner, a behemoth inside me waiting to pounce. I’m not ready to lose my father, and can’t say if I ever will