cancer, again
It is four in the morning, and I can’t sleep.
Sometimes I wish real life was more like fiction—that there could be a neat ending to a story, and then the next chapter is about something else, something new and different. But our lives have no readers besides the people who love us enough to stick by us. And the people we love certainly don’t get to see the cleaned-up versions we would present later in essays or stories; they either see too little or too much.
My father was deemed cancer-free a few months ago, after a dramatic but ultimately relatively harmless (in the long-term sense of the word) battle with lung cancer. After a messy divorce, but before the bankruptcy that led to the loss of his small business and the home where I was raised, he reconnected with his high school sweetheart, who has spent much of the each year with him in the U.S., miserable except that she gets to have his company. After the doctors said he no longer had cancer, he made plans to move back to Greece with his love, who has a home there--to abandon his apartment, his check ups, and just go. He said he would be back next summer for a check up, and maybe the summer after that, but only for a couple weeks each time.
I was all for this. Call it sentimental, but I want my father to die on the island where he was born. In many ways, I think he never should have left; the brothers who stayed there are so much happier than he, so much more well-adjusted, though some drunken conversations with them have led me to believe this may have more to do with his personality than the fact that he jumped ship in his mid-20s in a city called Baltimore and somehow found a way, after many battles with immigration, to make a home in this country.
Of course, it was easy to say "I want my father to die on the island where he was born" when death was something that was likely to happen in the next 5-15 years.
A week ago, he called to tell me he was having trouble walking. I called the hospital where he “doctors,” as they say in Minnesota, and told them to add to his already long list of appointments for his last visit (to check lungs, blood sugar, etc) a MRI of his legs. They said it was already on their radar and he would get it. For some reason, despite the fact that, strangely, my mother's last battle with cancer began with pain in her legs, I didn’t panic.
Tonight I called, expecting to hear that the leg problem was nothing. Instead, he told me he has cancer again. He tried to keep his voice steady, but in the end, he couldn't; all of that hope and anticipation of finally going home in a couple weeks, all of that new freedom of healthy-again, were gone. He said the doctors needed to take more careful looks at today's tests and would call him next week to discuss a plan of action. But, the plan of action will likely not include the sentence, "You should move to Greece now if you want to die there."
His love is devastated; her papers have already been renewed once so she could stay with him during his first battle with cancer, but this time, she will almost certainly need to go back—and, she tells me, she should, anyway. It has been too long since she’s seen her children or her property; she has things to take care of, and yet, she doesn’t want to leave him. She is asking without asking what I can do; I tell her I'll be there for a couple weeks in late July, around the time her visa will run out, to try to put some help in place for him, at least.
We cry, and I try to think of the right words to say to her in my broken Greek. Usually, in moments of deep grief or stress or anger, my language skills actually get better; it’s as if my brain dips into my childhood memory of first-language, and I am fluent again. But this time, I can’t find even the words to tell her how sorry I am, how scared.
I text S’s college buddies and call my best friend here, and that is all I can bear to do. I am tired of sending mass e-mails to people who won’t know what to say, anyway--and the friends who are being thoughtful about checking in with me, knowing that parenting a child like S means I can't reach out as easily or as often, will hear soon enough.
Then S and I went and saw a stupid movie, “to get our minds off of it,” as she said, and then, we both tried to sleep. She fell asleep about two hours ago, finally; I’m still awake.
S and I were supposed to go to Greece in January. It was totally a sentimentally-planned trip, and one I can't really afford, but when I was 9, I went with my family over the holidays. Although my sister and father were with us, what I remember most is my mother, finally cancer free (though not for long), navigating the narrow streets of the island, clasping the hands of the people there--how happy and free she seemed, even though she was still weak, even though she was dragging her little daughters from house to house and party to party. Every time I go to Greece, I feel her presence; the fact that the people on the island talk about her constantly is a comfort to me, one way I remember who I am, who she was. I so wanted to be there for the holidays with S. I wanted to check in with my father, see how he was getting along--that was my excuse, but really, I wanted her to experience a (much-modernized but nevertheless similar) Greece over the holidays. I also wanted to see the elders at a nursing home where I have been returning every other summer for the last few years; I was supposed to be there this May, but when the class did not fill, I comforted myself with this plan to go in January.
Aside from the sentimental reasons for the trip, the fact that I want to be with my father is completely and utterly unbelievable to anyone who knew me prior to five years ago. I have spent most of my adult life writing, in one way or another, about my complicated relationship with him, though about five years ago, my work moved on to other topics—and still, I would circle back occasionally, unable to completely let go of the harm and pain he has caused me, or the immense lessons he’s taught me through both his mistakes and his incomprehensible courage and resilience. We are closer now than we’ve ever been, mainly because I’ve come to terms with who he is, and who he will never be, but also because he has mellowed over the years, and has been so incredibly kind and attentive toward S.
S loves him, something I didn't expect to happen. She wants to tell him the important things about her life--and strangely, he reacts appropriately almost every time. I love him, and I don’t want him to be sick, or to have to stay in the U.S., or to die.
And for some reason I think that all of these hours that I’ve been lying in bed, unable to sleep, all I needed was to write this, and post it, and then maybe I can get at least a couple hours of sleep before morning.
S and I will go later this month to Ohio to be with him. We had a trip planned anyway, but had not expected to see him, as he was to already be in Greece by then. We’ll simply extend the days we’re there and do what we can, and then I’ll have to come back here, like last time, feeling useless and wishing I were closer. I’ll again offer to help him move here and again, he’ll probably decline. He is in his 70s; the last thing he wants is to start over in a new town where there are so few other Greeks (not to mention an troubling lack of medical care). And yet, now, he can’t go to Greece, probably can’t stay with the love of his life.
As I write this, I am weeping, again--to me, the fact that he can't go back there for good as he'd hoped to do is almost sadder than the cancer.
All I can do is think the positive things: he will have good medical care; I will be able to help, even from afar; we are finally close for the first time in all of our lives; he loves and accepts me and my daughter as much as any man with his background and personality could love and accept anyone.
And, yes, he has cancer. “But we’ll get through it, no matter what happens,” S said tonight, and she is right.
The sun is coming up. I haven't watched a sunrise in over a year, so I think I'll go out to my back porch and just watch awhile, and then maybe get a couple hours of sleep before work tomorrow. Sometimes I think the best thing to do is to give in to the urge to write, even if you know it's going to be raw and not particularly deep or thoughtful, and even if you wouldn't normally post or share the first draft of something you'd written at 4 a.m.
Sometimes I wish real life was more like fiction—that there could be a neat ending to a story, and then the next chapter is about something else, something new and different. But our lives have no readers besides the people who love us enough to stick by us. And the people we love certainly don’t get to see the cleaned-up versions we would present later in essays or stories; they either see too little or too much.
My father was deemed cancer-free a few months ago, after a dramatic but ultimately relatively harmless (in the long-term sense of the word) battle with lung cancer. After a messy divorce, but before the bankruptcy that led to the loss of his small business and the home where I was raised, he reconnected with his high school sweetheart, who has spent much of the each year with him in the U.S., miserable except that she gets to have his company. After the doctors said he no longer had cancer, he made plans to move back to Greece with his love, who has a home there--to abandon his apartment, his check ups, and just go. He said he would be back next summer for a check up, and maybe the summer after that, but only for a couple weeks each time.
I was all for this. Call it sentimental, but I want my father to die on the island where he was born. In many ways, I think he never should have left; the brothers who stayed there are so much happier than he, so much more well-adjusted, though some drunken conversations with them have led me to believe this may have more to do with his personality than the fact that he jumped ship in his mid-20s in a city called Baltimore and somehow found a way, after many battles with immigration, to make a home in this country.
Of course, it was easy to say "I want my father to die on the island where he was born" when death was something that was likely to happen in the next 5-15 years.
A week ago, he called to tell me he was having trouble walking. I called the hospital where he “doctors,” as they say in Minnesota, and told them to add to his already long list of appointments for his last visit (to check lungs, blood sugar, etc) a MRI of his legs. They said it was already on their radar and he would get it. For some reason, despite the fact that, strangely, my mother's last battle with cancer began with pain in her legs, I didn’t panic.
Tonight I called, expecting to hear that the leg problem was nothing. Instead, he told me he has cancer again. He tried to keep his voice steady, but in the end, he couldn't; all of that hope and anticipation of finally going home in a couple weeks, all of that new freedom of healthy-again, were gone. He said the doctors needed to take more careful looks at today's tests and would call him next week to discuss a plan of action. But, the plan of action will likely not include the sentence, "You should move to Greece now if you want to die there."
His love is devastated; her papers have already been renewed once so she could stay with him during his first battle with cancer, but this time, she will almost certainly need to go back—and, she tells me, she should, anyway. It has been too long since she’s seen her children or her property; she has things to take care of, and yet, she doesn’t want to leave him. She is asking without asking what I can do; I tell her I'll be there for a couple weeks in late July, around the time her visa will run out, to try to put some help in place for him, at least.
We cry, and I try to think of the right words to say to her in my broken Greek. Usually, in moments of deep grief or stress or anger, my language skills actually get better; it’s as if my brain dips into my childhood memory of first-language, and I am fluent again. But this time, I can’t find even the words to tell her how sorry I am, how scared.
I text S’s college buddies and call my best friend here, and that is all I can bear to do. I am tired of sending mass e-mails to people who won’t know what to say, anyway--and the friends who are being thoughtful about checking in with me, knowing that parenting a child like S means I can't reach out as easily or as often, will hear soon enough.
Then S and I went and saw a stupid movie, “to get our minds off of it,” as she said, and then, we both tried to sleep. She fell asleep about two hours ago, finally; I’m still awake.
S and I were supposed to go to Greece in January. It was totally a sentimentally-planned trip, and one I can't really afford, but when I was 9, I went with my family over the holidays. Although my sister and father were with us, what I remember most is my mother, finally cancer free (though not for long), navigating the narrow streets of the island, clasping the hands of the people there--how happy and free she seemed, even though she was still weak, even though she was dragging her little daughters from house to house and party to party. Every time I go to Greece, I feel her presence; the fact that the people on the island talk about her constantly is a comfort to me, one way I remember who I am, who she was. I so wanted to be there for the holidays with S. I wanted to check in with my father, see how he was getting along--that was my excuse, but really, I wanted her to experience a (much-modernized but nevertheless similar) Greece over the holidays. I also wanted to see the elders at a nursing home where I have been returning every other summer for the last few years; I was supposed to be there this May, but when the class did not fill, I comforted myself with this plan to go in January.
Aside from the sentimental reasons for the trip, the fact that I want to be with my father is completely and utterly unbelievable to anyone who knew me prior to five years ago. I have spent most of my adult life writing, in one way or another, about my complicated relationship with him, though about five years ago, my work moved on to other topics—and still, I would circle back occasionally, unable to completely let go of the harm and pain he has caused me, or the immense lessons he’s taught me through both his mistakes and his incomprehensible courage and resilience. We are closer now than we’ve ever been, mainly because I’ve come to terms with who he is, and who he will never be, but also because he has mellowed over the years, and has been so incredibly kind and attentive toward S.
S loves him, something I didn't expect to happen. She wants to tell him the important things about her life--and strangely, he reacts appropriately almost every time. I love him, and I don’t want him to be sick, or to have to stay in the U.S., or to die.
And for some reason I think that all of these hours that I’ve been lying in bed, unable to sleep, all I needed was to write this, and post it, and then maybe I can get at least a couple hours of sleep before morning.
S and I will go later this month to Ohio to be with him. We had a trip planned anyway, but had not expected to see him, as he was to already be in Greece by then. We’ll simply extend the days we’re there and do what we can, and then I’ll have to come back here, like last time, feeling useless and wishing I were closer. I’ll again offer to help him move here and again, he’ll probably decline. He is in his 70s; the last thing he wants is to start over in a new town where there are so few other Greeks (not to mention an troubling lack of medical care). And yet, now, he can’t go to Greece, probably can’t stay with the love of his life.
As I write this, I am weeping, again--to me, the fact that he can't go back there for good as he'd hoped to do is almost sadder than the cancer.
All I can do is think the positive things: he will have good medical care; I will be able to help, even from afar; we are finally close for the first time in all of our lives; he loves and accepts me and my daughter as much as any man with his background and personality could love and accept anyone.
And, yes, he has cancer. “But we’ll get through it, no matter what happens,” S said tonight, and she is right.
The sun is coming up. I haven't watched a sunrise in over a year, so I think I'll go out to my back porch and just watch awhile, and then maybe get a couple hours of sleep before work tomorrow. Sometimes I think the best thing to do is to give in to the urge to write, even if you know it's going to be raw and not particularly deep or thoughtful, and even if you wouldn't normally post or share the first draft of something you'd written at 4 a.m.
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