Randoms by Rach

Dad

21st September is a day every year when I feel particularly sad. I dread its arrival, imagine terrible things happening once it's here. But the bad thing already has happened. Nine years ago today. I lost Dad to the evil cancer that stole every part of him over the previous two years, three months. This year, I am sad, but I feel compelled to write about him, and his illness. I feel like it's time (after all, I seem to be on a bit of a demon-releasing roll at the moment!).

So . . . my Dad. He was complex, that's for sure. My feelings about him are complex. The older I get, the more I understand him, and the more I forgive the parts of him that hurt me. I was a Daddy's Girl. I was always closer to him than to Mum. It was hard to be close to a woman you called "mum", but who you spent so much time looking after. Dad and I were alike in many ways, and he . . . got . . . me. At the same time, he didn't have a clue. He wore these blinkers that told him everyone in the world saw things the same way he did, if only they were honest with themselves. He thought everyone reacted in the same way he did to problems and criticisms. But they didn't. I didn't. So when he constantly told me I was fat (and no one loves a fatty!) from the age of, like, five, it hurt. It did not make me try to lose weight (at least, not until I entered the teenage not-eating years, but that's for a whole other blog post). Similarly, when he told me I was thick, and would never amount to anything, it hurt. It did not make me determined to prove him wrong. It stole my confidence.

The good, happy things I remember about Dad are many. I remember the night before I got my G.C.S.E. results at school, I completely freaked out. I cried and apologised over and over for being a failure. Dad held me, stroked my hair, kissed the top of my head. He told me I would do just fine, and that they would love me whatever. When my results came back really good, he didn't say he was proud. In fact, he told me I was stupid for thinking I would fail.

My overwhelming happy memory of Dad is of dancing. Now, I know it's not cool to dance with your Dad when you're a kid, but he was really good. He was passionate about it, and had been all his life; teaching ballroom and rock'n'roll, and calling square dancing in his youth. His love for dance seeped into me the moment I was born, I know it did. As soon as I could walk, he was teaching me dances. Dad's cousin was in a band (they had a Top 10 hit in the 60's) and we often went to their gigs. Rock'n'roll was our specialty. I loved how fast and energetic it was. So many times, we had the floor clear all around us, and everyone stood back, clapping us on. Dance is the one thing Dad always told me I was good at (honestly, the one thing). It makes me sad to know I'll never dance that way again.

Dad spent his whole life frightened of getting cancer. He never smoked, grew his own fruit and vegetables, exercised all the time (although, he was always overweight - there is another thing he passed on to me). His mother died of breast cancer when she was fifty-six, and he never really got over it. He worshipped her, and watching her in so much pain terrified him. Which made the diagnosis of cancer of the oesophagus so hard to take. He hardly spoke a word for the first few weeks. He was told there was a cancerous mass on the junction between his oesophagus and stomach, and there were shadows on both lungs, which they needed to investigate further. If the shadows were cancerous, palliative chemotherapy, with a prognosis of eight to twelve months. If not, they would operate, and hopefully remove all the cancer. That week we spent, waiting for the results of his lungs, was torture. Mum, Dad, and I were scared more than I can say. Every time my phone rang at work, my heart leapt into my mouth. I didn't want to know. But I desperately needed to know. When Dad got the call to say the shadows were probably just scar tissue I broke down and cried. I couldn't believe how lucky we were.

So, chemotherapy commenced. The doctors said it would give him a better chance of complete recovery. Also, they could check the size of the shadows on his lungs after the chemo. If they hadn't changed, it confirmed they weren't cancerous. They didn't change. Dad had the operation (which took 14 1/2 hours, due to complications). Slowly, Dad began to recover. He was so brave through all of this. So brave. Then, he started to get pain in his stomach. This was four months after the operation. The doctor thought it might be a hernia, and booked him in for a scan. The day we got the results of that scan is burned in my memory. I knew it was bad news. I can't say how, I just knew. I took Dad to his appointment, and I think he knew as well. I remember being left until last to see the doctor. Another sign that things weren't good. I held Dad's hand as they told him the masses (no longer shadows) on his lungs had grown considerably. The only treatment was palliative chemo, in the hope it might give him a few extra months. Rather than support Dad, I cried, and cried, and cried. He had to comfort me. How I drove us home, I don't know.

Over the next nineteen months, he had two rounds of chemotherapy. The first one worked really well, and Dad was a lot better. But it didn't last long. Slowly, the poisonous cells worked their way into his brain. He had some radiotherapy, but it didn't help much. He started falling over and bumping into things, having fits, and finally he was unable to stand. In the last few weeks, he was confused, and said the most bizarre things. It was devastating for Mum and me. We had carers come to the house and Mum (despite her own physical disability and pain) did what she could for him during the day. We had a wonderful neighbour who helped a lot, too. I continued working full time because my boss was an asshole, and I was afraid to ask for time off. I looked after Dad in the evenings. Then, two nights before Dad died, Mum called me downstairs, at around 3 a.m., saying Dad wanted to tell me something. But by the time I got there, he was confused, and his sentences fragmented. I understood, though. He was asking me to look after Mum. I told him I would. I slept on the sofa that night, in case his brain found a way to unscramble the words. It didn't. I took that day off work. It was a Thursday. I thought we were going to lose Dad that day, but he fought on. On the Friday, I decided I would go to work, clear my desk, and to hell with my boss. I was taking time off to spend with Dad, until he passed away. That morning, I held Dad's hand, and told him of my plans. He tried to say something, but again, his brain wouldn't help him. He said, "But, Rach, you do need me." He meant to say, "But, Rach, I do need you." When I got home from work, he was in and out of consciousness, incoherent all of the time. He died at 10:35 p.m. What breaks my heart the most is his last words to me were saying he needed me, and I went to work. I will never forgive myself for that. Never. I was too chicken shit to ask for time off before. I was too conscientious to a boss who treated me like shit, so I spent Dad's last waking moments away from him.

Well. I've cried my way through this blog post. I've never written about this before. One of the most bittersweet memories I have from his illness is from around three months before he died. I was exhausted from work, looking after Dad (and Mum), looking after my diabetic dog. One Saturday morning, I was walking my dog (Jake). It was just a little walk around the village. I tripped over. It didn't hurt at all. Not even slightly. But I was hit by a wash of tears. I started crying, and cried the whole way home. When I got indoors, Mum was on the phone, and Dad was sat on the sofa. He asked what was wrong, and I said I fell over, but it didn't hurt, yet I couldn't stop crying. I was inconsolable, wailing, at this point. I sat next to him, and he held me for the longest time. He understood. He knew why I was crying. When Mum came off the phone, she asked what was wrong. But she didn't understand at all. I think that's why I was closer to Dad.

I miss him. I wish he could see me, happy, with David, and writing on this website. He would be proud (I think). I miss him