What happens when you find out there's no cancer in your chest....where they removed a baseball sized lump filled with cancer that had infiltrated the surrounding blood vessels, nodes and lymph vessels? That cancer that survived the most lethal of chemotherapies.... What happens when you have been told that it's likely you have 2 years to live and here you are a year later with no signs of cancer. What happens to your mind? Where do you go with it.
It's a wild ride. Up and down like you couldn't and wouldn't even want to pay for at Canada's Wonderland. It leaves you wondering where the baseline is.
Tonight......I'm listening to Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and all those goodies. I'm lost. I don't know. It's a predicament. Covid isn't isn't helping. I have no friends to relate to. NO one to look in the eye. No one to sit with and laugh with, cry with and relate to. It's been over a year. Fuck this shit.
I'm angry. I see people dying from cancer, people depressed, people isolated, people lost. What the hell. There's got to be more. There has to be some bigger picture here....am I missing it? I feel on some level. YES.
My Dad survived cancer last year. No fanfare. This man battled it like a champ. Italian who never wants to leave his house, took a plane. Went to a hospital, grappled with the loss of his kidney as they cut out the cancer. He was as he's always been to me....a role model.
He battled cancer. I can do it too. That's what I told myself. He sees it differently. Probably the reverse, but a lot of who I am and what I know I attribute to this man. He's more wonderful than anyone can imagine.
In my youth, he'd plant a big garden, we'd watch him tend it. He'd help us fix his cars, he'd treat us like we were "boys". I say that knowing full well what I'm saying. A lot of it is because of the woman he married.....she is a force of nature. Anyone who knows her knows this.
Last February, I had to visit my Dad in the hospital, after he'd had his cancer removed, while I was on my third round of chemotherapy. I saw him there. I saw him battling to stay alive. It gave me the strength to stay alive. To prove.....we can do it. This is likely the first he'll ever hear of this, and will likely upset him. As Italian fathers keep most feelings in. I know who he is.
He battled cancer seemingly effortlessly. He was a runner. He lifted weights. He cooks. He's got a joke to tell and is the center of attention in a room, even though he sits and says nothing. He is effortlessly powerful and endlessly supportive. He is a powerhouse.
In his day he was a "beautiful man" as my mom describes....he still is. He's a beauty for sure.
Anyone who knows him knows he's not looking for accolades or adoration or attention, he's just who he is. It's what makes him the best.
I haven't put pen to paper to say it, but seeing him beat cancer gave me a boost.
My dad has always been an inspiration. The sun rises and sets with him for me and always has. Just like my dear Mommy..but more about her later.
Fighting cancer isn't a sole endeavour. It takes support, examples and love.
Saturday nights....when I was a kid. Me and my dad and sister would watch James Bond or Die Hard or movies like that and eat popcorn while my mom took a bubble bath.
Those images live in my mind...they bring the love in.
And as he approaches a year....cancer free. Respect to Freddy.
You did it Dad..
XO
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