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Dad...I Love You...Sep 13 '00 Write an essay on this topic.It was just over two years ago that my father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was living by himself, as my mother and then his second wife had both passed away. He lived in Arkansas and I was in Texas. He was a fiercely independent man. Someone, who was very set in his ways. After he was diagnosed, I gave him a call and ask him to come live with us. My wife was a nurse and she would help me watch after him. We would give him the best of care. He wouldn't hear of it. If he was going to die, it would be in his home. I knew in his eyes that I was just his son. He felt that he had to show me that he was a man who could take care of himself. Besides, he had my step-sister to check in on him from time to time. He could still drive and otherwise take care of himself..he was not an invalid !! Within a few months he started having terrible pains in his head and other parts of his body. He went to see the doctor and they checked him out further. They had discovered that the cancer was spreading like wild fire. The cancer had now spread to his bones. He had been going through the various treatments of radiation and chemotherapy, but it was too far along. Again, I approached him to come live with me. By this time, he could not drive and was having a hard time taking care of himself. Again, he retorted that my step-sister would watch after him and he, otherwise, could still take care of himself. My step-sister was getting married and I knew that her mind was fixed on that event, more so than my father. Her visits to him were getting further and further apart, even though he was getting worse. My brother's wife came down from Oregon to take care of him, but after two months it was creating a hardship for her. She missed her young children and my brother. Sending him to a nursing home in Arkansas or anywhere else was out of the question. He said that we might as well put a gun to his head and put him out of his misery. It was time to take action, Once again, I talked with my dad, but this time I told him whether he liked it or not...I was coming to get him. There was no one else to watch after him. He had all kinds of reasons, why he couldn't come. He gave me all of his worries about paying the few bills he had, taking care of his things, moving.. it went on and on. I told him that the only thing he had to worry about was to just be ready for me, when I got there. Whatever would come up, big or small..I would take care of it…Period. Reluctantly, he said okay. I drove up to Arkansas and brought him back to live with us. My wife and I had moved out of our master bedroom and into a loft within the house. It took awhile for my father to adjust to all of the kids running around, but the family adjusted quite readily to him living there. He was, always, preoccupied with the burden he felt he was placing on the family. He had a hospice nurse coming every week and either my wife or I needed to be there, because he had problems with his short term memory. My wife and I took care of his meals and all of the various problems that seemed to crop up. I mention this not because I felt that he was a burden, but because these were things that he was acutely aware of and it made him feel terrible. Constantly, he tried to assert his independence, by trying to do whatever he could without anyone's help. He was trying to maintain his dignity. Unfortunately, as we knew was going to happen, he got worse. As he got worse, he began to go into a deep depression. I didn't know what to do. This was a man who never showed his emotions, let alone talk about them. He went through the deaths of two wives and I never say him shed a tear. Not because, he didn't love both of them in his own way, but because men don't do that. I had never…ever received a hug from him nor had he ever shown any type of affection. Ever. I loved my father, but he, always, kept an emotional distance from his sons. I was sitting with my father, one evening, talking about just a variety of subjects when he looked at me and said that he was having a hard time living there. I asked him. Why? He said that he knew that he was a substantial burden on the family. We were, always, taking care of everything for him. He felt terrible and he didn't know what to do about it. This was the only time that I ever remember him telling me that he had an emotion. I looked at him and told him that we were doing these things, because he was my father and that we all loved him. It was no burden. His response was, that love can only go so far, because you still have to deal with the fact that he was a burden. I looked at him and didn't know what to say. There was no arguing with him. He would never listen to me. I kept looking at him. What was I going to say? What was I going to tell this man? I could see his eyes drop and I knew that he was just feeling worse. Finally, I thought the heck with it. I got out of my chair. Walked over to him and put my arms around him. I noticed his eyes grow huge. It was like, I had done the most shocking thing to him in his life. While I had my arms around him, I said, "Dad, I don't know what else to tell you. I love you. I will always be here for you, as you were always there for me when I needed you." My dad's eyes started getting smaller again. I guess he was getting over the shock. I was getting ready to pull away, when all of a sudden, I felt the pressure of his hands and arms on my back. He was giving me a hug. It was the shock of a lifetime. I,again, looked in his eyes. They were getting watery. Through terrible tragedies, I had never seen my father shed a tear, yet here he was. After a period of time we pulled apart and I, again, looked at him. He was smiling. Something he had not done very often in the 3 1/2 months that he had stayed with us. After that moment, I got to know my father more than I had ever known him in my prior 45 years. My father has since passed away. But I will always be grateful that I had a special time to really get to know him, even if it was for a brief period. I had a moment with him that will stay with me for the rest of my life. So why do I burden you with this event in my life? It's because I want to relay to you something that I learned. Try if at all possible to be there for your parents when they need you. When they are gone, they are gone. It's never too late to get to know and understand your parents. And that maybe in their waning moments of life, a miracle may happen. It did with my father.  |
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