On May 31, 2007, my father passed away between the hours of 7 and 9 a.m. I'd just started a new job, I was wrapping sandwiches with a co-worker discussing my father's illness (ironically). The phone rang and I just stood there because I knew, in my heart, that it was my mother calling to tell me that my father was dead.
My dad was diagnosed with cancer when I was about eight years old. I'm 23 now. He lived with leukemia for more than 11 years, which is A LOT longer than most people who have leukemia. What was unfortunate for me was that I'd just learned about death AND leukemia shortly before my father was diagnosed.
A friend in my class had died. To be honest, we were hardly friends. I felt bad for him and for some reason I was greatly affected by his death. I'm guessing it's because I was so young and I didn't know that children died like older people did.
I was standing on the back porch when my mom told me that my dad had cancer and I remember her explaining to me that my dad wouldn't die the way the kid in my class did and that they found it early so he would be fine.
Sooner than I thought, my father's hair began to fall out and I was petrified. I automatically connected his hair loss to death because the boy in my class had NO hair and he was really offended when I asked him why he was bald. I didn't know what cancer was. I didn't know that you could die at any age. As a naive child, I thought you only died when you got old.
One day my dad shaved his head and he was peering down at me from the top of the basement stairs and I ran away from him.
I guess that's when I forced myself to take life more seriously. I stopped going outside as much and when I did, it was to avoid my father because I was afraid to get close to him. I didn't want him to die and I didn't want to have a strong bond with him if I could help it.
Eventually, his cancer just became a regular thing for us. It was like, "Oh I have chemo on this day so I can't take you to school." Or "Come down to the hospital and then all three of us can go have dinner and take a cab home."
In elementary school, I guess I somewhat forgot that my father had this disease. When I started high school, many things changed, including the condition of my father's health.
He missed my first day of high school and I found out later that day that he trashed his hospital room and was ranting to all of his nurses about how upset he was.
I will never forget how proud I was of my father for doing that, for bragging about me and wishing he was here to see me.
There were many days when I'd come home and neither of my parents would be there because of complications during his chemotherapy or last minute hospitalizations. I can't even count how many times we ended up in the ER at the really shitty hospital down the street or at Northwestern.
A lot of people ask me why I am such a hard person or why I am the way I am. It's because when I was 8 years old, I nearly died. A kid in my class died during the same year. Shortly thereafter, my father was diagnosed with cancer.
I take life very seriously, sometimes too seriously at times. When I want to be carefree or when I want someone to take care of me, I feel bad about it. I'm so used to doing things for myself because my mother spent the majority of my adolescence having to take care of my dad and that's what I was used to.
I miss him.
By the time I was in college, doctors were constantly wondering if he'd make it through the night. When my father was seeing a doctor at a certain hospital, our family doctor (who works at this certain hospital by the way) STRONGLY encouraged my mother to get him out of there and go to Northwestern. The doctor at Northwestern gave my father an extra four years of life, at the very least.
But things got very bad when I was 20. He constantly had problems with his legs. They would get really swollen and red...and sometimes liquid would ooze out of them (I know it's gross and I'm sorry lol). I can't remember why this happened and maybe it's for the best that I don't know all of the details but one day, it was just horrible. We didn't know what to do. He couldn't walk. His legs were hurting too much. An ambulance had to come and pick him up at the house. He was so tired. Northwestern kept him for about a week and then kicked him out.
My mother took it upon herself to put him in a rehabilitation center (not the kind of drug addicts...the kind for people who need physical therapy)/nursing home.
The people at this facility treated my father like shit. They also failed to do any physical work with him. In fact, I did more physical activity with him on my own, than any of the nurses.
Even though he was angry at me, I carried him out of his bed into a wheel chair and I made him use his feet to wheel himself out into the hall to play catch with me.
He just... deteriorated right in front of me. Over the period of a week, my father's weight dropped tremendously. He was not keeping any food down. He was always cold and clammy. He was miserable. His mood swings were unbearable. He wasn't himself.
I went on my job interview with my mom. We decided to go see my dad to tell him the good news. He didn't really care. I sat in his room w/ him as he laid practically lifeless in his bed, staring at the TV that wasn't even on and I heard this screaming from outside the room.
I ran out and found my mother on the floor crying, saying that the doctor said he had two months to live.
Two months.
My first instinct was to go and tell all of my relatives and get advice from them. So after I dug into my mother's purse for her cell phone, my dad stopped me and asked me what happened. Then he asked me "Am I dying?..." and I said "No. You're not gonna die. You can't, remember?" A few months earlier, a bereavement counselor tried telling me that I should let go of my father while he was still alive and that he was going to die and I needed to accept that.
I told her "I need to leave now because I really want to punch you in the face. Don't tell me what I need to accept. He's still alive."
I went back to his room that day and I cried and I held him and he asked me what happened. All I said was that I needed him to promise me that he wouldn't die. He said he wasn't going anywhere and that he was going to keep fighting. I never told him why I made him promise me that. I never really told anyone about that conversation I had with that woman or how my mother just sat there and cried.
I went to one of the hallways and I called my aunt and she said that I should've expected as much and that all we could do now was pray for him. I called my other aunt, no answer. I called my cousin and she cried. I remember standing in the hall crying with her on the phone asking "what are we gonna do? what am I supposed to do? how can this be happening?"
The next day...all I will say is that the nurses did not do their job and my father somehow found the physical strength to pick up the telephone, call the house and say "I am lying in my own waste and it's running down my leg and the nurses won't come in and help me." I've never seen my mother move so quickly. She went to the nursing home, bitched out the staff and then made more nurses clean him even though they complained.
This is your job. This is what you signed up for.
I had to get up very early the next morning. My mom contemplated staying at the nursing home to be with him and I really wanted her to but she chose to come home.
That night, I laid in bed and cried harder than I can ever remember. I knew he was going to die.
I just didn't know that he would die the next morning.
Phone rings. Someone else answers. She pats my shoulder before handing me the phone. My mom is on the other end screaming and crying.
"He's gone," she said.
"What do you mean he's gone???"
"He died. He died this morning. You have to come home right now."
At first I didn't cry. The girl who was training me asked what happened and looked like she wanted to cry when I told her.
I couldn't breath. I went to my locker, got my stuff, the girl followed me outside and said she was sorry and I just broke down. I jumped into a cab and the driver saw that I was upset. He sat there for a minute before he decided to start driving. I'd called my best friend Miguel and I knew I had woken him because his cousin slept over and they were up late playing video games. His mom answered the phone and I heard her say "something's wrong. You need to get up right now." When I told him, HE started crying. He came over right away. I called my old best friend from high school, she loved my Dad and always told me that she wished he was hers. I had to leave her the worst voice mail in the world "Dad's dead. Call me later. Come to the house."
When I got home, my mom was still in...really bad shape.
We went to the nursing home, Miguel, my family and I. When we got to his room, I'd been hyperventilating for about 10 minutes already and I fell to the ground and crawled to his bed. As cliche as this all sounds, it's 100% true.
I just held his hand and sat there begging him to wake up.
What really just...sucked was the fact that I'd made plans to come visit him after work and tell him about all of the goals I'd like to achieve in life.
I still cry at weddings because I know my dad will not be the one walking me down the aisle, if I ever choose to get married. And I also cry because I know he will not be the one I dance with. If I ever decide to have children, he will not be the one to hold them or play with them or tell them boring stories like he used to with me.
I know he's in a better place. It's the only thing that keeps me going. I'm not a religious person but I have to have some faith. I have to know that he isn't just six feet under. He's up there somewhere, hoping that we've all gone on with our lives and that we're not sad all of the time. I just wish I could have one more day with him and just spend the entire time together talking about everything we never got to talk about.
I wish I could know that he's proud of me, wherever he is and that he's looking out for me from time to time, keeping me out of trouble.
