Delicate

   Six years ago this fall my dad was diagnosed with cancer. It seems like a different lifetime. I was just entering high school and enjoying all the trouble of being 16. I remember going up to the hospital on my lunch breaks to see him. I would sit there and never once did it ever occur to me that it was strange. I thought it was a set back, but that it would go away. I assumed it was just a hurdle that we were about to be over. And for a long time I treated it just as that.
   Six years later, and though the hurdle became a bit harder... it looks as though we might almost be over it..
   Last week, my dad was having a hard time keeping food down. Three days went by without him having anything in his stomach. I was nervous he had gotten the flu from someone who had come in the house. That Monday he was scheduled for a chemo session, as usual. I mentioned to the doctor he hadn't been able to keep anything down, so she ordered extra hydration and an MRI. The MRI showed that the tumor had advanced and had grown around larger portions of brain... and tumor was also inside his spinal fluid, moving. They suggested we stop all treatment and spend time with family.
   Yesterday we had our hospice admitting meeting, and I think that was my first moment of reality. I was driving home this morning and the sun was that really heavy yellow that can only happen in the morning, and I wondered if this time was going to fly by? And I wondered if I wanted it to or if I'd rather have it slowly go. It sounds morbid, but you just start thinking death all the time. You start to feel like you're dying alongside them, but you have this strange weight that reminds you of your own mortality.
   I'm still processing it all. I'm still trying to find something inside of him to walk away with. Something to carry with me. I know I could never forget this. I could never forget him.. but I fear what I will remember. I fear the pain inside of me becoming out of control and I fear the places it will rest. I know I won't look back on this and wish I could've done more... because I can honestly say I have emptied my soul into all of this... but I am worried of looking back on it and wondering why I had to lose so much of myself to it.
   I'm not mad at God. I don't believe this is some work of the devil. And I don't think we're reaping the benefits of some great mortal sin that was passed down from a predecessor. I just wonder where we all go at the end of this. It's almost more scary to reach death and then have to keep going. And having to find a new purpose and a new person to spend all your love on. It's almost more scary to have to re-enter the world of being in my early 20's after this being all I know. And I know I can... it just seems like a different world at this point.
   And after this stream of consciousness... I'm brought back to HIM and what HE must be feeling and thinking about. And wonder if he fears the things for my brothers and I that we fear for him...

"It's not that we're scared, it's just that it's delicate...."