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It felt like ever since my father told me about his cancer diagnosis, I could all of a sudden see the sickness in him. Maybe I hadn’t been paying attention before, but it just seemed to be more noticeable once revealed. I realized that he’d slowly been losing weight and his color of his skin seemed generally off. It was definitely a cause for concern, but I just took it as more of a reason to step up and be there for him. That was what led me to accompany him on one of his doctor visits.
“Do they always take this long?” I asked. My father had changed into one of those backless hospital gowns and was sitting up on the bed. A nurse had just left the room after taking a couple of vials of blood. I was seated in a chair close to a sink in the small examination room.
“I’m not the only person they need to see today,” my father replied with some of his trademark patience. I wished that it was something that I’d inherited from him, because I hated waiting.
“Hopefully they’ll tell us some good news,” I said. “We sure could use it.”
My father and I talked for the next couple of minutes until the doctor finally arrived. She was an older white woman with light blonde hair that she had tied up in the back. Her eyes were kind, and she seemed really friendly.
“Mr. Manning, it’s nice to see you again,” she said to my father. She put her hand on his shoulder in a motherly way.
“It’s nice to be seen again, Dr. Scavo,” he said. “I’ve told you that you can call me Reggie, just like everyone else does.”
“Sorry about that, Reggie,” she apologized. “I forget these things.” She turned her attention to me. “You must be Jackson. Your father talks about you a lot. You guys look just alike.”
“He’s lucky,” I joked, and she laughed. “So Dr. Scavo, how are things looking? My father only told me about his condition recently, but I want to make sure that I’m here for him as much as I can be.”
She nodded her head with understanding and then turned back to my father. “Reggie, is it alright to speak freely in front of your son? I have to ask for legal reasons.”
He nodded. “Yes. Anything you say to me you can also say in front of him. He’s my next of kin and all that other legal mumbo jumbo.”
“Alright then,” she said. She looked through the chart that she’d come in carrying and flipped through a couple of pages without saying anything. “Reggie, I know that you hate it when I beat around the bush, so I won’t. Things are bad. The cancer is spreading to other places. We’re going to have to be more aggressive with the chemotherapy that we are giving you.”
Dr. Scavo’s words hung heavy in the air. It felt like she’d sucked all the wind out of me as I listened to her go on to explain more about the treatment that she was recommending to my father.
“Is there...is there anything else we can do?” I asked. I was trying to keep my emotions in check, but the tears started streaming down my face. I wiped them away with the sleeve of my shirt and listened.
“We are not at the end of our rope,” Dr. Scavo said in a voice full of hope. “We caught this early and even with the spread, we’re not far behind. This treatment could work, but there will be side effects.”
“Like what?” My father asked.
“Typically hair loss, weight loss, nausea, and just a general feeling of unwellness,” she said “I understand that it’s not ideal, but the alternative...” Her voice trailed off. She was implying that he’d die without the treatment but not actually saying it.
My father was quiet as he nodded his head. I couldn’t read the expression on his face, but I could only imagine what was going through his mind.
“I get it,” he said. “When would you like to get started?”
“We can have you in here by the end of the week if you set your schedule before you leave today,” she explained.
“I’ll make sure he does it,” I said.
Dr. Scavo explained more details and left us. My father got himself dressed and the two of us silently made our way downstairs toward the parking lot. I had classes later on that day, but it was still pretty early in the afternoon.
We got in the car and sat there in silence for a few seconds. “Pops, how’d you stay so calm in there?” I asked. “I almost couldn’t keep it together.”
“I’m not calm,” he replied. “Sometimes you need to pretend you have it all together to keep yourself from falling apart.”
“I feel you,” I said.
“Jackson,” my father began, “I want you to be prepared in case something happens to me.”
“You’re going to be fine, Dad,” I said. I hated when he talked like this.
He shook his head. “I might be, and there’s every chance that I might not be. Either way, you need to be ready, because life is going to happen whether you’re prepared or not.”
I sighed. “I know what you mean, but I’m working on that.”
He shook his head again. “I just want you to grow up a bit more.”
I rolled my eyes. “Here you go,” I said with a sigh. “I’m in school. I’m taking care of things. Isn’t that enough for you?”
“Boy, do you ever listen to anything that I say to you? It’s not just about going back to school. You have to be concerned about what’s going to happen to you for the rest of your life. What are you going to do about money if I died tomorrow? You could sell my garage and the house and then what? The money is going to run out eventually, and you can’t depend on those royalty checks to keep your head above water.” I didn’t know if his anger was supposed to be directed towards me or if he was upset about the news that the doctor had given him. Either way, I felt myself getting more and more angry. All of these talks that he’d been giving me lately about how I needed to get my life together had been weighing on me. It felt like he wasn’t giving me the credit that I deserved.
“I told you what I’m going to do,” I said a little louder than I’d intended. “All I need is a good script and-”
“From where?” he interrupted me.
“What?” I asked
“Where are you going to get a script?” he questioned. “Jackson, I love you dearly, but you walk around with rose colored glasses sometimes. You act like you’re still the star of the show and not a...
“A what?” I cut in. I’d gotten mad by that point. “A has-been? That’s what you were going to say, right?” I could feel the anger rising in my chest.
“I was going to say a regular person,” he finished. “I was your manager for years. I know how talented you are, and I would still be saying that if you weren’t my son. But, you need to face the facts. No one sent you a script in forever. You’re just not out there like that anymore. I’d never tell you to give up on your dreams, but you need to get your head out of the clouds and come down to Earth like the rest of us.”
I couldn’t believe what my father was saying. He’d joked over the years that I could be a bit of a male diva, but we’d always laughed it off. Now it seemed like what he was finally being honest about how he felt about me.
“Wow,” was all I managed to say. “I can’t believe you’ve been walking around feeling like this all this time and you never told me. I wouldn’t have wasted my time trying to take care of you.”
In the next moment, my father snapped in a way that I’d never seen him snap before. I didn’t know he could move so fast. His hand reached across to the passenger’s seat and he grabbed the front of my shirt in his balled fist.
“I AM SICK, Jackson!” he yelled in my face before letting go. “It’s not always about you! You think I busted my ass all these years making sure that you had the best of everything for my own health? Hell no. I thought that if I protected you and I made things easy for you that you’d feel free to grow up and grow into someone more responsible. Now I realize that all I did was stunt your growth as a man.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “When I’m gone, I want to know that you’re going to be able to take care of yourself, and I don’t really feel that way right now. I blame myself for it too. I blame myself for everything, even you not being on the show anymore.”
To know that my father had been walking around feeling this way was a lot for me to deal with. I didn’t know that he thought he was to blame for my downfall. In all honesty, I knew that I was the only one at fault. I hadn’t been prepared for everything that came with fame, and I was easily influenced. The issue was that when my emotions got involved, I could sometimes put my foot in my mouth, and that’s exactly what I did next.
“Maybe it is your fault,” I spat out. He gave me the saddest look that he’d ever given me, but I didn’t care. I got out of the car and slammed door shut behind me. I didn’t know where I was going; I only knew that I needed to relieve some stress.