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Why I Never Wanted My Dad To Die
I couldn’t imagine taking care of my estranged mother myself.
Three of us sat knee-to-knee in the doctor’s office. It was a small room, too small to discuss something as enormous as the black shadows on my father’s lungs. He’d had a wet cough for a year, maybe even longer, and we waited for the bad news.
The doctor explained that the small dark spot from his first X-ray eight months earlier had blossomed and now covered most of his lungs. The new X-ray showed splotches everywhere, as if my father had taken a full paintbrush, the tool of his trade, and splattered it across the screen.
We were facing a stage four lung cancer diagnosis.
I say ‘we’ and not ‘he’ because my father and I were a team in preserving his well-being. I could not face a world of caring for my mother alone. As it was, I hadn’t spoken to her in two years. After enduring decades of her cruelty, I had washed my hands of an unrealistic hope of a healthy relationship with her.
My dad had been her ally and enabler, staying at her side no matter what she dished out. I knew my father cared about me, but only as far as her needs would allow.
But who forgets about a spot on their lung? Did he think it would just go away? Didn’t…
