My son is 16 months old. My father? A mere 66. In 2001 my dad had a stroke that should have killed him–but he was too stubborn about living to die. The doctors herded my sisters and I into a tiny room at the hospital where my dad struggled, stubbornly, in the ICU. They showed us eerily glowing scans of my dad’s brain. See here? And this mass here? they asked us and we nodded, wincing–who wants to see their dad’s BRAIN? Not us. Brain cancer! we were told and we nodded again, upset. But my dad was too stubborn about–about everything, apparently–to have brain cancer. To this day my sisters and I muse to each other, Hey–remember dad’s brain cancer? Whatever happened to that? And we give little shrugs that mean: I have no f****** clue, Man…
For 8 years since his stroke and misdiagnosed brain cancer my dad has lived a retired man’s dream in a seaside condo in silly, tiny, OC-surrounded Dana Point. He doesn’t smoke. He doesn’t drink alcohol. He reads. A lot. The New Yorker, the New Republic, the New York Times, many novels going at once: the John Adams biography, the latest tome on string theory, re-reads of the Master and Commander series and a biography on O’Brian, Gruen’s Water For Elephants (oddly!). And he watches CNN. And accompanies us to the Scripp’s Institute aquarium. And takes the train to visit us and we wander Travel Town so he can lecture on the creepy old steam engines, or we wander LACMA, or the Getty up there on its kingly hill. I want my son to have memories of his Gdad. And since the mysteriously vanishing brain cancer incident, I’ve just assumed my dad is invincible, despite his gout, his need for frequent bench-breaks when we’re wandering, the occasional wheeze between his lengthy, five-minute sentences.
This week my dad was diagnosed with COPD, a double-whammy disease–emphysema and chronic bronchitis (hence that wheezing). COPD is the fourth leading cause of death in this country. Apparently you can have it for years and not know it–then, one day, it blooms full force and your doctor prescribes an inhaler, later an oxygen canister, later assisted living as the disease, incurable, progresses at its private pace. Next week my dad will have a Cat Scan and an MRI as his doctors look for: lung cancer and that old, elusive brain cancer. I’m thinking the COPD is enough for my dad to live with. I’m thinking whatever deal he made with the cancer to stay away will stick. I’m thinking if my dad can just make it for another few years, or 10, my son will have definite, ingrained memories of his Gdad. I’m thinking I knew this was going to happen, my husband and I have discussed it, our parents getting older, diagnosed with “things”, and at some point—to put it not unkindly, but bluntly—checking out. Such discussions make us feel incurably adult-like and mortal. If we feel this way, how does my dad feel? Don’t ask him. He won’t tell you. Oh he’ll lecture to you all about COPD, but he won’t tell you how he feels about having COPD. He prefers it that way…So stubborn…
T and I will pick up his Gdad from Uni Station next week and motor up to Santa Barbara. We’ll take the Gdad for a wander on Hendry’s Beach and that weekend his daughters will gather and we’ll have a kind of party with grandkids and sons-in-laws and dogs and the BBQ and bottles of lemonade. We’ll have a party for my big, talkative, slightly stumbling, COPD dad who never smiles for the camera, even though he is having a good time. And—because what else is there to do except emulate a Greek Chorus and that gets old very, extremely fast and would completely annoy my dad in any case—for now we’ll just keep on with the old, Him? Oh, him! Don’t worry about him. That stubborn dude will live forever…And I’ll keep stubbornly thrusting T into my dad’s awkward, deceptively capable, arms.
Beautiful writing, Pam
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