It was Mid October when we found out the cancer was terminal. Eight months after the official diagnosis. The time is important to me; it highlights how swift and merciless it all was. We barely had time to blink before it was all gone. Before he was all gone.
He had finished his treatment; been given the all clear and was nevertheless getting sicker, smaller, weaker. After the second time he had stopped breathing in his sleep our kind Doctor convinced him to go for an impromptu scan at the hospital. Dad didn't want to go. He was sick of hospitals, of being chopped and burnt and poisoned. But this Doctor was a man he loved and respected, so he agreed.
At the hospital we had to wait a while. It was very busy, with lots of frustrated faces surrounding the walls. Hospitals are unhappy places. People under enormous stress, people desperate, people alone.
We were eventually seen by a young Doctor. He was perfectly nice, but repeatedly tried to make my dad confess to taking too many drugs. Here we go again. Why did they all refuse to believe us when we told them he'd had nothing? By that point he was being fed and watered through a stomach peg. Nil by mouth. In the end dad said he had taken Valium. It wasn't true, but I knew he wanted the young Doctor to stop asking him the same question. They took an X-Ray of his lungs just to be on the safe side. After all, this drug addict had also had cancer.
We waited for a long time. Dad had wanted to go. He'd admitted his crime, now he wanted to go to bed. But we waited: Mother, Father, Daughter, Son.
Eventually the young Doctor came back with another man, a senior Doc. By this point we were giggly and giddy with silly jokes and nonsense. We were a great family. We made each other laugh. I had almost forgotten why we were here. What did they want? When could we get out of here? We said, just tell us what's what here in the waiting room, Docs! We don't mind, we can see your busy. Ignore the vending machines! It's all fine.
They smiled but didn't laugh at our jokes. They removed an angry, waiting family from a room for us to talk. My dad was quiet. We wheeled him in. The daughter of the family glared at me, raising her voice. I'd been there. Poor wretch.
Inside the room we sat and waited. They followed us in and Dad knew. He had always known. They weren't experts in this field, the older Doctor said. But there were shadows all over his lungs. Then he put his arms around my dad and told him he was so sorry to have to be the one to tell him.
Lung Metastasis. No one beats that.
Back in the waiting room we were all crying. Quietly. No more silly jokes. Did the people there notice? We had been so happy before.
Oh God my poor mother. Her love, her friend, her everything.
I went to phone my boyfriend. I doubt I made much sense. I said, "He won't be saved".
In the taxi home we had an irritatingly talkative driver who insisted on telling us how curable cancer was. My mom was rude, told him to shut up. I was glad.
The sun was shinning through the clouds and a little rain. It was an Autumn day, just like today. Just like today. Then on the radio a song was played that will always make me think of that moment.
When I wept. I wept. I wept.
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