« my conversation with max |
home
| i did not expect. »
Sunday, 26 June 05 ::
dad, cancer and independence.
"some people have the illness, survive the illness, and never want to talk about it." ~ lance armstrong on cancer..
i suspect that that is my father. my father has the illness, but doesn't like to talk about it. he deals with it, but he doesn't dwell in it. he takes his stuff, sees his docs, but isn't an activist. if he survives it, goddess willing he does, he'll probably just walk away from it, taking with it its lessons, but not talk about its impacts on him ever again.
thats my dad. and i respect that. and i love him. and i hope that at least he'll share with me the lessons he learns along the way. i want to know how his body is, but the lessons he learns are far more important. these are adult lessons, and i hope he'll share with me some of the things he's learning in this class, that he'll show me the syllabus and expand on it just a bit.
----
this summer dad is going to have radiation. he'll go to c'ville and get it. he'll stay with his brother-in-law for the 10 days he'll be getting his treatment. it has sort of occured to me to offer to go home and be with him during the treatment -- if he needs it, but then it occured to me -- he's my dad.
huh?
i don't get my independence just from my mom. listening to my dad deal with this new challenge in his life i hear that introvert, that want to be normal, that independent streak. i'll do it on my own. maybe i'll tell you about it, maybe i won't. yeah, he's my dad and if i were him and i didn't *need* someone to be around, i wouldn't want anyone around. we'll ask you for what we need and tell you what we want to tell you, but we can do it on our own.
its a comforting thought to realize how much dad and i are alike. its nice to see how much we are alike in being our own people.
---
psst. dad. i love you.
posted by brooke at June 26, 2005 07:49 PM
