20 Things I Never Said Before You Left

Having lost a father and two brothers, I know a little about regret.  I try to live my life these days with that in mind, so that the sinking feeling that "I never got to say" doesn't ever plague me again.  

But before I was so world-weary and wise, I left a lot on the table.  I forgot to say some things, and I forgot to do others.  With that in mind, this one's for my Da.

20 Things I Didn't Say Or Do Before You Died

1.  It's okay to be scared.  You had lung cancer, and you grew up in an era where a man worked, a woman stayed home, and guys were not allowed to feel fear.  I was scared for you, and I know you were too, and I wish I'd let you know that I knew, and that I didn't think any less of you for it.

2.  At the end of my wedding video the videographer put us on the spot and asked if we wanted to say anything to our loved ones. I fumbled, and stuttered, and I said "Mom, thanks for everything, you are the wind beneath my wings...and Dad, thanks for being such a great dancer!" It sounds silly, but the idea that you thought that it was your only contribution to that special day haunts me.  I was honored to walk down the aisle on your arm.  And yes, you were a great dancer; but what I really meant was that I waited my whole life to dance with you in your handsome suit, just the way I remember dancing on your shiny brown shoes when I was a child.

3. I talk too much.  It's a nervous habit, and on Sundays I'd jabber away, instead of listening more to you about your life.

4.  I'm sorry you only met Chris after we were engaged.  I never thought you'd be interested in meeting my boyfriend, and now that I'm a parent I realize how much that must have hurt. I wish you'd had more time to bond over old movies and character actors, and maybe you wouldn't have had to stare him down the first time you met if we hadn't already been engaged.

5.  I'm sorry if you thought I didn't care when you were sick.  I hope you didn't believe that, even as your wife threw it at me in the kitchen.  You told me not to listen to her, and I have to hope you didn't either.

6.  I'm sorry I didn't believe you could die.  Even when they said there was no hope, that you only had a few months to live, in my head I believed that MY Dad was stronger than any disease.  I planned the following week off to spend time with you--but I was too late.

7.  I wish I hadn't been so concerned about doing everything in its due time, because waiting to have a baby meant that you didn't get to meet Shaelin, or Jason, or Lily.

8.  I'm sorry...but I'm glad you weren't alive to see the death of not one, but two sons.  I can't stand seeing what it's done to Mom, and we both know she's always been the stronger one.  

9.  Being a child of divorce was painful, but I appreciate that there were times you tried to make it easier in your way.  You made a point to tell us that your new girlfriend's cooking wasn't as good as mom's, and as a kid I thought that was a weird thing to say...as an adult I realize you were trying to take away any sense of replacement or competition. 

10.  Thank you for traveling two hours on a Sunday just to spend the day with us, to take us to China Sky or McDonald's or the movies.  To this day I can't see a first run movie without thinking of the way we would wait in the lines that went around the building to see the next Star Trek or Star Wars movie.  (FYI, I can't see a Star Wars or Star Trek movie without thinking about you, either.)

11.  I wasn't the rabbit that ate the carrot.  I know you thought I was, but I wouldn't have left a half eaten carrot in the couch cushion--I would have eaten the whole carrot.

12.  I'm sorry if I disappointed you.  I know you (and I, to be honest) expected me to take the R.O.T.C. scholarship and join the military.  Things didn't work out that way, and there will always be a part of me that wonders if you would have been prouder of me if they did.  I have no regrets--I loved the career I chose instead, and I love the writer's life I live now, but I also would've loved to make you proud.

13.  I picked Butterfly Kisses to dance the father-daughter dance at my wedding because I was focused on the Butterfly Kisses-- you always gave me "Eskimo Kisses" with your nose when I was little..but all you were focused on was "after all that I've done wrong I must have done something right."  I never thought about things you did wrong,  both because I loved you too much to care and because Mom always hid that stuff from us.

14.  Stop smoking.  Stop smoking years ago.

15.  I love you.  I know I've said it before, but there's just no way I could've ever said it enough.

16.  I hate John Wayne movies.  I wouldn't change the fact that you watched them all the time, because now it's nostalgic and they remind me of you, but God! I didn't fall asleep on the couch because I was lazy or over-worked, I fell asleep because I couldn't keep my eyes open when that cowboy drawl came on.

17.  I always thought you were 6 feet tall, even though you were only a couple of inches taller than me.

18.  No man could ever replace you.  If you ever feared that you were loved less because somebody else lived in our house, you were blind to the hero-worship that we had for you.  Proof positive:  I married a tall, handsome guy who loves old war movies, cheap beer, and bad jokes.

19.  I'm jealous that you brought each of the boys to play golf with you.  I know I can't hit the ball to save my life, but it was such a huge part of you that it always bothered me that you didn't share it with me.  (It's like that "mountain"--which I've since discovered is really more of a small hill--at Breakheart that you always took the boys to see but I was too little.  I'm bigger now.  Grown up.  I can golf.  Sort of.)

20.  I'm proud of you.  I know that there are things you've done in your life that are not things to be proud of.  But you also worked hard at a job you loved,  taught me to read at the age of three and fostered a love of a good Stephen King book, laughed at losing half a finger because it bettered your golf grip, weren't afraid to hug or kiss your kids, fought cancer as hard as you could, and left at the moment you chose to leave.

Dear Family: I'm Not Letting You Go, It's Just Grief & Anxiety

 

     It's easy to think I'm fine.  After all, I've gone out with my friends here and there, I've gone on vacation with my family, I've even taken my mother to Paint Night.  I post pretty pictures up on my Facebook page of all the wonderful things going on and the accomplishments of my three children.  To the casual observer, I'm happy.  I'm moving on.

      The trouble is I'm crumbling inside.  Leaving the house is preceded by thirty minutes of heart palpitations and tension, as I try to keep it together despite the fact that a panic attack is clawing at my throat.  A text that goes too long without a response from my husband and I start worrying something's wrong.

     Something is wrong.  I got the call on January 6th, some time in the afternoon.  "Listen," my brother Bill said on the other end of the line.  "You have to go over to South Shore Hospital.  Michelle called.  Charlie sat down on the couch, then Ari came out and said Papa's not waking up."

     Everything else he said was lost as I fumbled out of the blanket wrapped around my legs and stuttered, "I'm on my way!"  My hands were shaking as I tried to put on my shoes, and my throat was stuck as my husband asked me what was going on.

     I don't remember what I told him.  In my head, I was busy re-playing the deaths of my youngest brother and father, fourteen and fifteen years ago respectively.  Re-playing the last month, when my oldest brother, Charlie, had been diagnosed with colon cancer.  Re-playing the night before, when I'd dropped him off so he could see his girls.

     I declined my husband, Chris's, offer to come with me, thinking the kids would need him more than I would, because I was just being silly. Charlie would be fine.  I would be fine.  I was wrong on all counts.

     I've been late for all three of my loved ones' deaths.  When my father died of lung cancer in 2000, I had been scheduled to take the following week off, but he died overnight and by the time we drove up to Middleton to say goodbye, he was cold, and gone.  I felt completely crushed for getting there too late--too late to see Da one more time.

              My Dad And Me

     

     When my brother Jay went into the hospital after a night of seizures and not being able to wake, I was too late then too.  I had stayed home to watch my brother Bill's daughter, Ashley, but as the night wore on into morning I knew I had to leave her with Chris so that I could go to the hospital.  As I walked through the halls, trying to find my mother, I saw them wheel a completely limp body past me for a CT Scan.  It was Jay, no longer thrashing but lying docilely asleep.  It didn't look like him.  His fever reached 104.5, and they transferred him by ambulance to another hospital.  He went into cardiac arrest on the way.  I'd never see Jay awake again.

     As I drove to South Shore Hospital, I knew it couldn't happen again.  How could it?  I couldn't be late again.  When I got put in the small room, I knew it was bad news--but as the doctor spoke to me and told me they were working on him still, I somehow, foolishly, had hope that I wouldn't be too late again.  She asked if I wanted to be there while they worked on him, and because I couldn't bear to be too late, I said yes.  When I got into the room, they had just called time.  I was too late to say goodbye to my brother, and my last remaining brother and my mother weren't there yet to keep me focused on someone else's grief, so I collapsed to the floor.

     When I finally managed to send a message to my husband, it wasn't elegant.  It wasn't careful.  It wasn't gentle.  It said "my brother is dead", because that was all my shaking hands could type.  

     I could tell you all about the services, or the severe flu that everyone came down with except me, or even the ride to pick up his ashes.  But the point is that the world goes on.  Those things are big moments to me, but not necessarily to the world.  To the world, it seems like six months or longer has gone by.  To me it's a day.  Maybe a week.  I put on my happy face, because neither his nor my children need sorrow, and my mother is grieving two sons the only way she can--by pretending it hasn't happened.  But for me, I want to sit down and burst into the uncontrollable sobs that just won't stop.  There's never time for that, so I let a little burst happen here or there, and then I force myself to go outside the house, no matter how much I hate it.  I would much rather spend my time inside, safe in a bubble of music and writing.

          This is my safe space 

     

      Invitations have been coming to family events.  I have a lot of family, and I used to go to all kinds of big events with them until my brother died.  Now the idea of stepping into a room with all of the people who I last saw at my brother's wake terrifies me.  It terrifies me to the point that I shake, and I gasp for air, and I ultimately just say no.  It doesn't make sense, but then anxiety and grief have never had to make sense for me.  

     Because I'm not ok.  All is not well.  My brother is dead, and I'm not ready to move on. It feels like if I go to a big family party, I'm admitting that he's gone, and I'm saying it's ok to move on.  It's not ok, yet.  Not for me.  So please, when I answer no to an invitation, know that I'm doing it out of love, a love for my brother that says I'm still here, I still remember, and I'm not ready to let you go.  Someday, in the way of grief, I will be.  When my tears are dry, when my sobs have finally been purged, I'll be able to think of a family gathering as just that.

     But until then, please understand, I'm not letting go of you.  I'm just holding on to my brother.

Cancer and stuff

It's been a busy couple of months.  

My brother has colon cancer.  He's my oldest brother, and the one who gets in the most trouble, so it should be no surprise that he found out about the cancer by falling down the stairs and breaking his arm, collarbone, and two ribs.  I know, none of these have anything to do with the colon.  I'm assuming they were checking for internal injuries, but with Eldest Brother, who knows?  He doesn't like to ask the doctor questions.

He had surgery to remove the cancer in his colon, but got a call last week saying they were going to do chemotherapy as well.  He'll meet with the doc today.  I sent him a list of questions that I'm certain he won't ask, but it made me feel better to send them.

If your loved one is diagnosed with cancer, ASK questions--when I was diagnosed with a cancerous molar pregnancy (gestational trophoblastic neoplasia that was invading the uterine wal, to be exact--and yes, that definitely conjures up pictures of little grumpy dwarves pick-axing my uterus)-- 

image credit: spongebobandfriendsadventures.wikia.com

I didn't ask enough questions, and later wished I had.

What kind of cancer is it? (Do you know there are many forms of colon cancer? And each one requires slightly different treatment.) What stage is it? (Staging also helps decide course of action.) If I require chemotherapy, will it be intravenous, intramuscular, or pill form? (Mine was intramuscular--a shot in the ass.  I combined that with a leukovorin pill, which kept my hair from falling out and my puke from ending up on the floor.)  Is it hereditary? (I still don't know.) If it's hereditary colon cancer, which kind is it? (There are two.) Should my children be monitored for this?  When will my chemo start, and how many "rounds" will I have to go through (there may be no answer for this, but don't you feel better knowing you asked?) And last, but certainly not least, what experience do you have with this disease?  (Because doctors aren't infallible, and you want one who knows his sh*t.)

So.  Ask your questions.  Get your answers.  Get a second opinion, if so desired.  

Then get treatment, ASAP.  Don't ask the doctor if you can postpone until after Christmas, because the kids would rather have you here for five more Christmases. (Yeah, I'm talking to you, Eldest Brother.). And pray. I'm not a religious person, but it can't hurt.

Good luck, and positive thoughts!

And just to cheer you up after this mostly depressing post, here's a hug: