when my parents told me that they both had cancer they spread the news out over some weeks... as I remember it.
my father had thyroid cancer and that was what they first told me. my mother had breast cancer and they waited until I was at our "family home" to tell me... while the three of us were all sitting... after they announced that they "... had something to tell..." together, almost as though they were a team.
as I would retell my personal history, i "hated" my father throughout my high school years. I don't really know if I liked him before that but I definitely remember telling my mother during my freshman year that I hated my dad. Declared it. Simple. And clear.
I immediately half-sobbed, "Are you going to loose your hair?" upon hearing about my mother's cancer. And, even now, I remember feeling as though it was the one and only thing I could say that would allow me to cry and also not cry at the same time.
today both of my parents are in remission.
my mom, however, has suffered through leukemia, chemo and radiation first for the breast cancer AND then for the leukemia, shingles and a broken shoulder... from a fall she took... home alone... struggling through the shingles... after my father divorced her... soon after she had first been diagnosed with breast cancer.
for me, it is both a psychological and physical struggle against repulsion and disbelief every time I interact with my father... although we are more than pleasant to one another and he seems as if he has no lasting memory of a past that has affected the entire "family" he was once a part of... however half-heartedly.
today, I have more conviction and resolution regarding the feelings I considered for my father and summed up so righteously when I was fourteen. But I am older and I now understand what I did not then... that my being angry with my father was no concern of his and had little to do with his place in the world... and only wastes time I could better spend doing anything else.
my father seems to be a much happier man these days. He appears to be spending his time doing exactly what he would like to be doing and answering to no one on account of not having any need to. which is a reality I believe everyone dreams of. It is difficult to interact with someone in the throws of such rebirth and contentment and not be happy for them... everyone deserves the chance to have the life they desire. And I am happy for him, in some way. And it is also in some way that I still "hate" him... only now I am of enough years to recognize that feeling this is ridiculous... and will make no difference.
