Cancer

I could have cried when she told me. Burst out, emotions and all. Probably could have yelled out, in pain. But I held my tears, because once they fell, she could hear me crying on the phone, and I would not be the good brave boy who stands up after falling.

Dad has been hospitalised. Xrays reveal gray dotted areas have spread on his liver, and are now reaching his lungs. But he continues to smoke, and pretends as if he is strong enough to take it. I imagine his face, his eyes... I remember the way he used to rock me to sleep in his arms, as he told me stories he made up on the spot...

He is weak, mum said, sometimes even having difficulty walking especially with his worsening diabetes... And they have to restart the chemo again. Hair might fall out. They dare not put too much dosage, for his body may not be strong enough to take it... He is moody, and doesn't like to be told that he shouldn't smoke at all. I remember the smell of cigarettes on his fingers, and the sound of his sometimes coarse, but at the same time soft, voice which I have not heard in many, many months....

My hands shivered, and I closed my eyes. To stop the tears falling, and falling. I remembered the nightmares that I often have at night... scenes of me watching dad suffer and choke from his coughing... scenes of him dying, and me, helpless and weak, and unable to stop it...

Mum's voice continued, sometimes wavering, sometimes weak. She was afraid to tell me, afraid I would worry too much about then, afraid that I have enough stress from my work. I told her I can take it, and that I'd prefer if she told me everything.

Dad is not the only one who has to undergo chemo again. Two new lumps were discovered. The doctors had said that this would be a possibility. "I'm so sorry," she said sadly, "I had made plans to come see you and stay with you in March, but it wasn't meant to be..."

It wasn't meant to be. I swallowed and as bravely as I could sound, I told her not to worry about that, not to worry about my ungrateful, selfish brother or his girlfriend, or about the house here. "Please just take good care of yourself," I said slowly, "And please just tell dad to take good care of himself. I can handle the rest. I really can." Because I always have.

Two bombshells within the timespan of five minutes. Outside the winds howled, and barren trees danced lifelessly to the sorry tune against a bleak gray sky...

I had expected it, I had known it was simply lurking around the corner, trying to entice me whenever it could, trying to taunt me, however it would. But I never realised it would be this hard to hear it, to really hear it, and know that it is happening.

The sanitised smell of the hospital hallway. The clean white linen of the ward that somehow never seem, and never can be, clean enough. And somewhere, out there, is my dad.

I wish I could take away his pains, his fears, his tears deep down inside, and just tell him that it would all be alright, that it will all pass like all things in life. Tell and reassure him, as he told and reassured me, when I was little and hurt. But between us spans the distances of time and oceans. Soft little words, so difficult to say, so hard to hear.

Take care, take care...