Lately the phone calls I've been getting from my Mom are sounding more and more like the nightly news. They're bad news for the most part and from time to time there might be mildly good news or a heart warming story. But those are all few and far between.
The first phone call was to tell me that the trial didn't work. That it was time for plan b. The next one was that Dad was having a hard time breathing and he had been rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. That was followed by the update that he had gotten a staph infection...AND strep. In his blood system. Most recently, it was that he wasn't making any sense. He had progressively gotten worse throughout the day and that the doctors had no idea why.
Obviously, I had questions, and I even started to ask one, but I knew. I knew Mom didn't know the cause of it. I knew if she had any idea or if the doctors had said anything that she would tell me. There was no point in asking. It's bothersome knowing that there are questions that go unanswered. Sometimes for a few days or weeks, and sometimes indefinitely.
What's more bothersome than those questions is the one I don't ask because I'm scared to. I would suppose that if you were to be sitting with me hearing every word my Mom relays you would know what to take from what she said. You would know what she was getting at. But I can't do that. I can't just deduce that this is it. I can't just assume that this is our last Thanksgiving. Or our last Christmas. That Dexter is the last grandchild that my Dad will hold in his arms. That my sister's wedding was the last one where my Dad would get to see his child get married. And maybe that's not what's going on at all. Maybe we're all holding on for an answer. Maybe the doctors are just trying to make him comfortable until the next trial comes around. It's just a total mind trip. I don't know how to respond emotionally because I don't know what's going on. It might be that I'm just not willing to accept what no one wants to hear or say. Or it might be that I'm just freaking out too much and being too negative.
Either way I won't ask. As a child, how do you find the strength to ask a question like that? And even more importantly, how do you find the strength to cope with the answer? And it's not just me in this situation. If I'm asking a question then there's a person answering it. My Mom. Being a Mom and a wife myself, I have to put myself in her shoes to understand the depth of this situation. Even if I were prepare myself, and ready myself to ask and to hear, how do I put my Mom in that situation. As a mother, how do you find the words to tell your child that their father might not make it to see their next child. How do you find the words to tell yourself that as a wife? Hell, for all I know my Mom might be in the same situation as I am. Maybe she doesn't even know. Maybe she's afraid to ask. Holding on to the faith of a miracle and putting off the reality that's looming at a dangerous distance.
I guess that's it. I'm holding on to a hope that something will happen. That God will do a divine intervention and show everyone that He's been here this entire time, just waiting for the moment that He knew would come. And that moment would be to heal my Father. It could happen. And I pray every day that it does. Every single day, multiple times. But I'm just so scared that my faith will make me a fool, and that I'll find myself blindsided by this and that everyone else will have known that it was coming. But I didn't because I hoped too much. I don't want to be blindsided, but I don't want to ask either. Cancer is such an asshole.
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