It was a cold Friday in January: a horrible day at work and we had gotten some heavy, wind-driven rains that wreaked havoc in the city. I was very glad for the miserable day to be over. I counted my steps home, never as relieved to be done with a work week.
I walked in the front door, welcomed by the warm light from the lamp on the front table. I was taking off my coat when I heard my husband call from his office, "Hey, Sweetheart." I knew something was terribly wrong. He had never before called me "Sweetheart".
He walked slowly into the foyer where I was hanging up my coat. With pity and concern in his eyes, he told me to sit down. I braced myself against the wall and begged, "Just say it." He sighed heavily. He put his hands on my shoulders, looked into my eyes and said, "Your mom called. Your father has lung cancer. You need to call her."
I hung my head, nodded and shrugged off his hands. I grabbed the cordless phone and settled in the living room to call my mother. She answered on the first ring. They had known since November, when my father had a small stroke. Dad was undergoing multiple scans and tests and they found tumors in his lungs and one of his kidneys. The only reason they were telling me now was because the oncologist knew my brother and they were afraid it would get out.
As devastating as this was, unfortunately it was not surprising. Daddy had been smoking for more than 50 years. Though the news wasn't shocking to me, my realization was: for the first time in my life, it occurred to me that my father was vulnerable.
He had always been a benchmark for me. Until I met my husband, my father was the smartest man in my life. He was also the strongest. Dad was unbending and set in his ways. He was a rather imposing presence at 6' tall with hands the size of baseball mitts. Add to Daddy's towering physical presence his stoicism and quiet intelligence and I thought he could do anything in this wide world.
In his thirty years at his company, he had never called in sick. Dad's philosophy was that if someone was depending on you, following through was not optional.
While not artistic in any way, shape or form, the man was creative. By trade, he was a machinist. If there was a machine that needed a part, he could make it. He could also create pure joy out of discarded junk. He made us a go-cart out of sheet metal and lawn mower parts and he built me a pottery wheel out of old scraps and a washing machine motor. He didn't see any of this as creativity. It all just made sense in his head.
The most amazing part of any of this was that he was minimally educated. Due to boredom and his work schedule, he graduated from high school by the skin of his teeth. At his company, they gave every employee an assessment test. Out of all the management, all the engineers with multiple college degrees and all the remaining hundreds of employees, my barely-educated father scored higher than all but one other person. To him it was just "common sense".
So in my little life, my dad had been the ultimate authority on everything. He was my Algebra guru. He fixed my cars when they had trouble. He could get splinters out when the doctor couldn't. He was my benchmark. All of the sudden, my benchmark was vulnerable.
The plan was for Dad to undergo six weeks of chemo and radiation. Then he would have surgery to remove the affected kidney. He managed the radiation and chemo pretty well overall. He suffered mild nausea and exhaustion, but kept his spirits up. After his final round of chemo the doctor informed him he would have to go through a much more aggressive round.
While slightly discouraged, Dad started in with the aggressive treatment. With each session, he became weaker and weaker. He was sleeping all the time and ate less and less. After his "final" treatment, the doctor asked him if he could take one more. Dad told him to wait and see.
After a few days, Daddy decided that one more treatment would kill him. He had lost about a pound a day since the aggressive chemo started. He was normally an extremely active man and had started his own business with some friends. He would typically go to his shop every day. The first week after treatment, however, the man who had never called in sick in his 30-year career stayed home for two whole days.
During one of my weekly phone calls with my mother, she gave me the update on Dad. Then, she softly asked me if I wanted to talk to him. I hesitated.
Daddy had never really known how to relate to me. We've had a very interesting relationship. He was best friends with my brothers. I know he loved me, but we rarely spoke. Not because we didn't want to; he just never knew what to say to me. I also think I scared him a little. My brothers were so reverent of my father that they pretty much let him do what he wanted. I, on the other hand, did not. I was the one that nagged him and scolded him for his bad behavior. I took a deep breath as I waited for him to pick up the receiver and I prepared to nag him some more.
I could hear him shuffling to the phone. He picked it up and I asked him how he was doing. He said he guessed he was doing alright. I paused and gently asked, "Really, Daddy?" He started to cry.
I have seen my father cry few other times in my entire life. He cried when his brother was murdered, when our family dog died, when my mother was diagnosed with cancer and when we gave me away to my husband. Then he cried once more on the phone that day.
I was taken aback by the emotion he was showing me. Not because it was unexpected or unwarranted. It was bothersome for me because I doubted he had let himself cry before that moment. It upset me that he felt like he always had to be so strong for all of us.
Back on the phone, I asked him if he was eating enough protein and if he was drinking enough water. He promised that he was doing the best he could and started telling me about the tomatoes and peppers he planted that week. I tried to think of something to reply with but couldn't get over the moment. I started to cry and told him I didn't know what to say. He replied, "Just tell me you love me, gal." So I did.
It's sad that it takes a tragedy to put the little things in our lives into perspective. Someone cutting me off on the freeway, not making a bonus at work, my computer crashing...all of it is so small and silly, yet I assigned so much importance to it all.
Here I was obsessing about my weight or what someone else thought of me or some other such nonsense and my father was at home obsessing on how to keep from letting everyone know how scared he was or if he would wake up the next morning.
We get so bogged down in our own little worlds that we forget that some people don't have choices anymore...at least not good ones. Daddy had a choice to try to fight to live or to give up and die. He quietly chose to fight.
My father is in remission now, though lung cancer has a habit of not staying dormant for long. At this point, we'll take what we can get. Out of the ashes of what could have been has arisen a new hope for what should be. My father has become my personal phoenix.
On that cold Friday in January, I learned the most valuable lesson of my life: I have been wrong. I have lived my life completely backwards. I've stressed and worried about the smallest of things. I've cared what strangers thought about me. I've ignored my family to do work that could have waited. I've gone years without telling my father what he's meant to me.
Today, like my father, I have made my choice to live. I've twisted the perspective in my mind and chosen to see only what is most important. While it is a shame that it took something as hateful and senseless as cancer to change my thinking, that single day in January has changed my life for the better. As my father would say, it's just common sense
