I was riding the train into my neighborhood with my boyfriend Danny when I found out the news. I had known it was a tumor for about a week at the time, but unsure as to whether it was benign or malignant. The words have been haunting me all week. Benign or malignant – he won’t eat, he’s losing weight. Benign or malignant – he won’t go out, he just stays in bed waiting for the pain to stop. Benign or malignant – the doctors can’t find anything. Benign or malignant – his colon his fine though. Benign or malignant – it might just be a bacterial infection. Benign or malignant - a tumor between his stomach and pancreas. Benign or malignant – not the pancreas, oh God, anything but the pancreas. Benign or mal—
“Kayla, it’s pancreatic. Daddy is going to start treatment in a few weeks,” she says over the phone. Danny and I wait for a shuttle train to take us back to Rockaway Park. I hug Danny and loudly whisper, “I fucking hate doctors. Ignorant bastards.” I’m not crying, but tears drip down on his shoulders as I rant to him about how long my dad has had the symptoms, and how it took a year and half and three doctors to find something as distinct as a goddamn tumor lodged in his pancreas. He knows that it’s a death sentence. He knows that the cancer is advanced. He knows not to say anything; he just listens.
I cut my morning classes the Monday after and explain to my counselors the news. I give one of my biology teachers a pass later in the week. She calls me over after class one day:
“Kayla, are you alright?”
“Yea, I’m alright now.” No, I’m not.
“Is somebody… hurting you?” Not me, my father.
“Oh, no, no. I, uh, found out my dad’s sick a few days ago. I was upset.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Where is it?”
“Between the stomach and pancreas.”
“My father died of pancreatic. It’s really hard to see somebody go through it. Keep your head up. I hope he’s okay, that it’s not too advanced.”
The summer is weird. Keeping busy is important. Working my first job, dabbling into running, enjoying the last moments with Danny as he prepares to head west for Pomona. Dad is in a more upbeat mood, as if his prognosis is a reason to keep living, something to fight for. He goes to treatments with my mom no problem. The only scares are the sketchy hallucinogenic painkillers the doctors are somewhat experimenting with. I start playing chess again for a little while, whenever he’s up for it. He was the one that taught me years ago. We have the TV shows that we watch together, but he can never share the intense obsession I have with Walter White as I catch up with Breaking Bad. He refuses to see 50/50, the epitome of a “dramedy.” Anything cancer-related is too close to home for all of us, but I see past that. Cancer takes over the body; it doesn’t have to take over the qualities of life that make life worth living.
Then Sandy hits us, hard. The week is a blur. Power’s out, no Internet connection, the basement’s flooded. Dad’s painkillers are running low, too low. Mom spends nine hours searching for a ride – any ride – in order to find a pharmacy that can give her the painkillers my dad is now addicted to. Time is precious, medication withdrawal not too far away. Chaos bombards us even more when the house becomes more and more unlivable as the toxic beach sand accumulates all over the floors and carpets. Uncle John houses us for a while, but he’s housing other family members affected by the storm. There’s a bit of tension. My uncle thinks I don’t care about his sick brother because I seem preoccupied with other things. But all I can do is bring him what he needs and just ask him how he’s doing. He’s hard to talk to now. He’s delirious. He can’t eat. He wants to be left alone. After a week, I leave my family to stay with a friend for a few weeks. I do stop by once or twice to see how everyone’s doing. Uncle John seems to be taking care of dad well. He and Mom are getting along better as well. I spend Thanksgiving with my mom’s family, trying to develop a closer relationship with a cousin who’s eleven years older. There’s too much chaos now. I’m done applying for college, but I just want quiet. I want the bad things – the bad thoughts – to go away for a bit. The blur makes it bearable, until it goes away and I wake up and can’t remember what has happened in the past month, except that my dad is still sick and my house and neighborhood will never be the same.
Anxiety creeps as I’m more and more out of the loop with my mom and the doctors on the state of Dad’s health. I keep thinking about my eulogy for him, even if I don’t want to. What would I say about my dad? Panic attacks strike anytime, anywhere, and anything triggers them. Concerned friends regret ever asking me how he is as they see me running away, hyperventilating and struggling to breathe. Class cuts accumulate, with guidance office passes to justify them. No teacher pulls me over to ask me what is happening. They assume “senioritis” is the culprit. The beginning of the end occurs when Dad refuses chemo in early February. It’s too painful for him to handle. It’s killing him. But that means he won’t suffer for much longer. I have mixed feelings of loss and relief. Yeah, Dad won’t live for much longer, but I won’t get to see him in pain for much longer. I don’t know what’s worse, the physical stress cancer can bring somebody, or the emotional stress that it brings about on the family members watching their loved one in a pain that they have no control over.
Counselors try to get me to be proactive. One even has the audacity to “soften the blow.”
“Kayla, what you’re going through is tough and it’s a part of life. But think of it this way: there are some kids who grow up without their fathers or have their fathers die when they’re much younger. You’ve had your dad for seventeen years.”
Yes, I’ll still have the memories with him, the ones that will crush me and cripple my mind as I reminisce because I won’t have all of the memories. He won’t wave from the car window as he drops me off to college or give me away at my wedding or see my children or Nick’s children. Am I supposed to feel selfish that I had my father for that long? I don’t know if I should feel grateful or horrified. Well, what’s worse, missing someone you’ve never known or having grown up with somebody you were so fond of who left the world before they were ready? All I know is that she is not going to be the only person to tell me this hard truth of life.
I forget that my dad is sick sometimes. It’s as if he’s gone to his bedridden states when depression took over his life when I was growing up. The only concern on my mind is if he had eaten. He’s whittling down, looking more and more like a concentration camp victim with each passing day. It’s frightening to see his body, and he knows it. He wears long pants and sweaters and rests under piles of blankets not only to keep warm, but also to conceal the damage the cancer has done to him. He’s not getting better, but he’s not getting worse. He has more days that he has enough energy to have conversations with me. It’s nice talking to my dad. I tend to ask him questions about his past, because he’s always been a private person. He seems to open up to me more, but in a very humble way. He tells me that he’s lucky that I can take care of myself and that he’s so worried about Nick. But that doesn’t mean he stops worrying about me. He’s worried about both of us. I tell him that Nick is the kind of person that will be okay no matter what he does. It’s at that moment when I realize how terrified I am about leaving home for school in a few months. Mom is going to have a harder time taking care of Dad, no one else in the house to help her or be available to vent to during the crucial times. I won’t know how Nick will handle everything.
The day we found out about Hospice, I saw this look on Nick’s face that I had never seen before – he was melancholic. There’s no way of knowing how he’s going to cope with this. Dad has always been his savior from video game addiction and the woes of middle school and high school. He was one of the few people that could get Nick out of the house, whether it would be to watch some crappy action summer blockbuster or to get a roast-beef sandwich at Brennan & Carr, probably talking about philosophy while they were together. I don’t know what Nick’s going to do without him. Nick has always lived to shock people, and the uncertainty of how he is going to cope really scares me.
I’m curious as to when the end is near. Hospice slowly comes into the picture within the next few weeks. I keep doing my own thing, thinking he’s going to be in this state for a very long time. I start getting hours at a new job, the simple tasks that take up my shifts numbing my mind, keeping anxiety at bay and my mind at peace. As I go out with friends instead of staying at home, I feel twinges of guilt that aren’t strong enough to keep me from going, but enough to keep from enjoying the outings to the fullest.
On a Sunday night in April, I feel lost. Something’s not right. I have a tennis match Monday afternoon, but I have this itch to go to my support group, which is at the same time. My coach understands this and lets me go. The next morning as I kiss my dad’s forehead goodbye, he’s not responding the way he usually does. He usually wakes up to say goodbye before going back to sleep. I can tell he’s reached a new point. He is mortal, and death isn’t too far away. As I’m at the group, I start feeling anxious for no reason at all. I tell myself it’s the coffee that I had right before I showed up. I tell Michele that Dad doesn’t have very long. There are so many things I don’t want to leave unsaid. I finally decide to apologize to him for all of the times I took him for granted. I didn’t say thank-you enough to him. I made sure not to forget when I got home. Mom called shortly after group, telling me to come home. She sounded worried, but wouldn’t tell me what’s going on, someone’s in trouble. I know it has something to do with Dad, but I don’t want to think about that option right now. I call Nick and force it out of him.
“Dad’s gone.”
I pray that I misheard him the whole bus ride home. But I see my prayers will be forever unanswered as I see the funeral car and stretcher in front of my house. His lifeless body is left for me to say goodbye before he’s carried away in a bag. I never got to say sorry. I take one last look at his blue eyes before I head to my room, wishing for sleep to wash over me, but it never does. The rest of the week was one of the most exhausting of my life. Sleeping is impossible, softened blows constantly being thrown at me by everyone I encounter. When I go back to school, I can no longer concentrate the way I used to, and I’m more frustrated with myself. Every day I fear that my concentration will be lost forever. My dad is no longer here to be my cheerleader, telling me that my hard work will pay off. Maybe he left when he did because he knew I was going to be okay from there. After his diagnosis, the first thing he said to my mom was, “I had a good life.” He was ready to go a long time ago, and I like to think that he fought for the ones he loved, and I find that to be one of the most selfless things anyone has ever done for me.