Note: I wrote this blog two years ago today on Aug. 14, 2017. Dad did indeed have cancer, stage three esophageal cancer, and died a little less than two years later. According to multiple sources, the two-year survival rate is a little more than 10 percent for this cancer.
I didn’t realize my father was going to die someday until I was 9 years old. A little more than year after my grandfather died in 1984, the subject of death came up during a conversation. I don’t remember what prompted it, but I do remember the incredible fear I felt when my father said, “Son, everybody dies.”
Dad was 40 at the time, entering the middle age of a life full of twists and turns, deep valleys and high peaks. I didn’t sleep well that night, even with the comfort of his final words before I went to bed: “I’m going to be here for a while, babe.”
I felt that same fear today when my sister-in-law called me at work from the hospital: “They think your dad has esophageal cancer.” There is no way to prepare for that phone call. Thirty-two years later, I felt like that 9-year-old boy again.
My father is a very private man, so much so that by the time you read this blog, he might not be here. He didn’t want anybody to know his business, just as he’s lived his entire life.
As a man who always put his boys first, he implored my sister-in-law not to call and tell me at work for fear of ruining of my workday, or, God forbid, getting me to leave a job I started less than a month ago.
I held it together in the office for about 30 minutes before I gathered enough strength to walk to my car. I cried much of the way to the hospital, sat in the car for a moment to get it together, and then walked into the building.
Whatever strength I managed to muster was gone the moment I saw him. I leaned over to give him a hug and lost it, crying into my father’s shoulder for the first time as a man, just as I did thousands of times as a child. For the first time in my 41 years, I saw and heard my dad cry.
We don’t officially know if it’s cancer yet. The scope revealed a mass and the CT scan spots on his liver. There’s always a chance it’s just a growth, but the odds seem rather slim. If it’s cancer, we won’t know what stage he’s in for a week. Few things are worse than waiting.
Dad has had a couple of close calls. He survived a heart attack in 2012 despite living 30 miles from the nearest ambulance and an hour from the nearest hospital. He survived another one in 2015 despite working during 100-degree weather.
He’s by far the toughest person I’ve ever met. He learned to survive during a tough childhood, often fighting much larger men (he’s all of 5-foot-6 and 160 pounds) when necessary and willing his way through near poverty into his mid-30s before building a successful business.
He’s often said during the last several years that he’s in “bonus time” now that his “boys have made it and are making more money than I ever did.” But today was the first time I’ve seen him scared, and that breaks my heart.
He’s lived an amazing life, one I’ve always wanted to write a book about. I just hope he gets a few more chapters.