Sunday morning.

It's such a strange reality to go to the store to grab eggs and coffee and have the daunting thought that the woman behind you buying Sunday's paper will soon be open up to the obituaries and see your fathers picture. I woke up at 5 this morning, like I have pretty much every day since my dad entered hospice, (and when I say entered hospice, I don't mean the hospice house, I mean when he was entered into the program in September), and just couldn't shake the anxiety. I watched a stupid mindless chick flick, got way too invested in the characters and was just about to do laundry when I heard the paper hit the front steps. "Oh ya..." I thought to myself, "today is that day."

You just start to move slower. At least I have. Quieter. Looking for the next thing and waiting far too impatiently for the rest of this earthly purpose to run me over. I guess now I go to school and move on with my life? Right? That's what people are supposed to do? That's what people keep encouraging me to do... it just doesn't seem so simple. It seems so small and insignificant compared to the last year of my life. To go sit in a classroom full of people my age with newly found independence from a stifling suburban life style, looking to become a world changer and keepin the revolution alive for peace and justice for all. It sounds annoying. It sounds like real life is going to intrude and rock their idealistic revolutionary soul. And for the rest of us that have been rocked... what? Now we roll?

Maybe cancer can bring out the existential cynic in us? Or maybe it just meant something? Maybe I got kinda attached and for the first time felt like I was doing something that wasn't hurting someone else. Like I was finally doing something right. Something real and so full of truth. Something that wasn't only beneficial to him... but something that changed me. And the way I look at life, and the way I think about family. And how you just realize that the small things are special.

Maybe I was the one being cared for.

October 24, 2010

   On my 22nd birthday, October 24, 2010, my dad gave the best gift he could ever give. He ended his fight and took his last breath at 5:35 pm. My grandparents were both by his side.
    Because I have had a few days to process and cry myself dry, I can write this in clear conscious and say I could not be more honored to call him my father. We are all so very proud of him for fighting as long as he did and look at his passing as such a beautiful release and a peaceful end to such a long war.
    I’m in the process of writing a “eulogy” that will be read at the celebration of his life. In the mean time here is what I wrote for his obituary. To those who knew my father, were witness to his amazing spirit, and moved by his brilliant determination, please celebrate with us.

    Lee Jeffry Fouts ended his six-year battle with cancer on October 24, 2010 in the thoughtful and caring hands of the Franciscan Hospice House. He is preceded in death by his sister Ruth. Lee is survived by his three devoted children Cody, Jessie and Jake Fouts; their mother, Mollie Fouts; his loving parents Bud and Marje Fouts; and his four supportive siblings Linda Grist (Eddie), Marie McKechnie, Keith Fouts (Peggy), and Ann Fouts. Lee also had 14 nieces and nephews, all of whom he loved spending time with.
Lee was born in Tacoma, Washington on July 13, 1956. His family later moved to Bellingham where he graduated from Sehome High School in 1974. He worked as an electrician for thirty years at various companies in Tacoma and retired from Totem Electric of Tacoma in 2004.
Lee’s passions included hunting, fishing, camping, golfing, jazz music, cooking, and supporting his children at sports events, music concerts, dance recitals and graduations. He devoted 20 years to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and served on numerous state committees including the Washington Wildlife Recreation Coalition.
Lee was diagnosed with cancer in the fall of 2004 and outlived a six-month life expectancy. His fight was admirable and taught us the limitless boundaries of the human spirit. As his family, we could not be more proud of his determination and utter strength.
Please join us to celebrate that strength on November 5th, 2010 at the Puyallup Elks Lodge (314 27th ST NE Puyallup, WA 98372) at 2pm. In lieu of flowers please instead, make a donation to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (www.rmef.org).

God willing.

I was talking to a girl at school and I was telling her that I was really worried about my grieving process. The whole first week my dad was in the hospital, I was very emotional. I was feeling through everything. I was, so I thought, grieving. But I hit this wall. I just became numb. I go to hospice house, listen to my dad's painful, desperate breathing and I just sit there and stare. The only prominent emotion I have is anger. And I don't even know who or what I'm so mad about half the time. Maybe just the overwhelming sense that there is this force invading my life and there is nothing I can do about it.


Whoever said that death is like the movies, lied. People don't die in hospital beds with family standing around whispering words of wisdom and encouragement. It's this slow drawn out process and when you think the moment is upon you, they bounce back. And when you think you've accepted it, think again. And when you think "comfort" means pain free, it doesn't. There's a lot of beautiful moments in death, don't get me wrong. Someone told me, "I think we're meant to watch people suffer through death to provoke a higher level of acceptance." The reality of it being, every time my dad struggles to take a breath I start pleading with God to put him out of his misery.


My therapist brought up a point I've been throwing around. He told me that the saying, "God doesn't give us more than we can handle," is bullshit. And I'm drawing closer to the conclusion of agreeing with him. Besides the sheer obviousness of suicide, there are just some situations that defeat us. And not that defeat is even necessarily a bad thing. I think it's just the reality of life to experience defeat. It's the purest form of death we can experience in life. It's means to start again.

I’ve kept myself busy studying the ways those around me cope. It was hardest to watch my grandpa in the hospital fight with all his might to not cry. To just hold it all inside. And then one day he broke. And he let my dad go, and the rest of us felt at peace. Now my grandparents just sit. Day in and day out they stay in my dad’s room, knitting, working on crosswords, bickering. Waiting. Taking care of him like he’s a little boy again. My grandpa talks to him and refers to him as “kid”. My grandma takes his hand and assures him that “mom is here.” And this is where God was unfair… if this whole situation has to have a root for the blameful. It’s not right for anyone to bury a child. It’s not right that this is the second they’ve said good bye to.

When I’m sitting next to his bed and it’s just us, I feel this sense of emptiness. I wonder daily where his soul is. If it’s just hovering over his body deciding when the right time is. I wonder what he’s waiting for. I wonder if there’s anything more I can say. I wonder when. I wonder if I’ll be here. I wonder if I want to be here. A friend, who lost his mother in March to cancer, told me you think you get to acceptance when they’re still “here”. You think you’ve grieved and you assure yourself you’re ready to let them go. Then it happens. And you break down. Again. Harder. I don’t know if I have it in me to mourn again. I don’t know if I even mourned. I just know it hurts.

I just know I want it over. Selfishly. Peacefully.

It's been a Long couple weeks

My dad has been staying at the Franscican Hospice House out on Bridgeport in University Place. He needs 24 hour nursing care and is having problems controling seizures and nausae. He no longer has a breathing tube and we have opted out of inserting a feeding tube. I don't really feel like writing anything thoughtful or poetic, so here is just an update. If you ahve any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

Emergency Update

I found my dad yesterday seizing in bed. I called 911 and he was taken to the emergency room. They were not able to stabilize his seizures, and we opted to have him sedated and a breathing tube put in. We do not plan to keep him alive only on the tube, we just did it for a comfort issue. At this point the fight is his and only his, there is nothing else any of us can do.. For now we ask family only to come see him, and hope those of you who saw and got to sit and talk to him remember him just like that. He would want that. I'll keep everyone updated I promise.

Then and Now

A couple years ago I attended a funeral with my parents days after my dad was released from the hospital for his second surgery. I was still emotionally recovering from the heavyness of his recovery, had just moved out and into my own apartment, and embarking on my adulthood. As I sat watching people talk about this man, I couldn't help but project my situation and see myself standing up on stage saying good bye to my dad. I came home and wrote this narrative. I read it to my roommate and she said that it sounded to her like a letter. I opened the phonebook and sent this piece to a random house, to someone I don't know and rid myself of it. I just recently thought of it and pulled it up. Reading through it's amazing how much things have changed. Even my thought process and emotional state. I decided to put it on here, because this journey has a past and it's just as relevent to the thesis of this blog.

  Today I was at a memorial service for my dad’s friend who died after a twenty-year battle with cancer. My dad has cancer. This man gave my dad a framed picture of a quote that said, “Let us be judged by the Footprints we leave behind,” when he (my father) was diagnosed the first time. My dad would show that picture to people who came over to our house and tell how this man (his name was Robyn) was his hero in his, then, new fight with cancer. I was glad he had someone to confide in going through the steps to recovery.
    When Robyn was diagnosed with Prostate cancer in 1992, the doctors gave him six months to live. He finally died April 9, 2008. Two days before my dad was given news that he had yet another brain tumor and would have to do immediate surgery. What he felt with the news of the two I don’t know. However, I do know he has never said anything about feeling defeated.
    The day after my father’s successful surgery, I tried explaining to my aunt all the emotions I was feeling and how this time around it just doesn’t affect me like it used to.
    “In a way I feel like I had to go through this again to get over what happened last time.” Last time when I went two years crying every time I had to talk about my dad’s sickness. I couldn’t accept it, even when we were sure it was over. It’s like it's drawn this piece of my soul out of me and I wasn’t ready to come to terms with the fact that it was gone.
    And now five days after my dad’s second surgery, I can breathe. The doctors told us this would probably never really go away. They expect a surgery like this to occur every couple years and the more the cells grow it could become more frequent. They told us that the body wouldn’t be able to handle radiation every time and that he’s healthy for now and we should just take it a day at a time.
    And we do.
    When I go into supermarkets, café’s, parks, and I’m standing at cross walks, I wonder how many bodies passing by me are infected with this. This silent disease that doesn’t speak but invades our bodies and changes our course of life forever. You start going through people in your family who you know had it and are certain it’s only years before it gets to you. Like diabetes or something. You just convince yourself it’s genetic.
    To this day I haven’t been able to write out exactly what I want to say about all that we’ve gone through as a family. I find my poetry reflective on my love life, my friends, and the mischief of being 19 but not of this subject. This ache that I still house, but in a sense, feel ok with.
    Sometimes the feeling comes up and I look around frantically for a way to catch it. Put it in a jar and do all that I can to recreate what it’s done in my life. I look for a pen, a brush, my ballet shoes, my camera, I try to play my guitar, but as I hold all these things the feeling just stays quiet. It doesn’t want to be copied or portrayed, it’s like it just wants to sit. And in return so do I. I sit staring at it, feeling it, wanting so badly to ask it all these questions… but I can’t.
    I’ve started to convince myself that it happened to save my parents marriage. That it happened so that I could hear him tell me he loves me before I had decided he didn’t. That it happened to make him sit back and see life for the little pleasures that it gives.
    When my dad was first diagnosed I used to catch him watching the sun come up. He looked deep in thought, and I wondered if I was supposed to reach for him. Tell him I loved him and that I was here to fight with him, and for him.
    Now I see nostalgia in his eye’s, I’m certain a little is fear, but I also see how determined he is to get better.
“It’s no big deal”, he says, “just a waste of time.”