My dad had always disliked Christmas - the chaos of it I suppose, but more to do with the fact that it reminded him of losing his mother, who died when he was just 21 years old.
He had enjoyed that Christmas in 2012, though. And he had sat there crying alone because he knew it would be his last one. The last Christmas we were all together.
I think about it all less consciously now, less often. But in my dreams I go back to the times when he was alive; turbulent, stressful times. We had a hard time long before the cancer came. But oh God the cancer was the worst. The trauma of watching someone you love slowly deteriorate and die never goes away. We fought so hard.
If I could summarise the most painful moments they would go like this (in chronological order):
- The 17th of December 2012, shortly after my 25th birthday. The day my parents came into my room to tell me that the doctor suspected cancer. God how I sobbed. I knew. Even then I knew. My poor parents.
- The day they cut him in February after the diagnosis. All day at that hospital. Watching him pale and afraid as they took him away for surgery. He held the nurses hand. All the waiting that followed and then seeing him afterwards looking so ill and in so much pain. The longest day of my life. I hated the world that day.
- The day we had to rush him into hospital because the chemotherapy was killing him. No white blood cells left. Not even one.
- The day he had to phone the doctor and plead for methadone because he had run out. That particular doctor viewed drug users with distaste. I remember him - the sort of person who believed a brisk walk could cure depression. What a self-righteous, irritating little man. He's retired now. I'll never forget the way he made my father beg, the way he said that cancer was no excuse. I hex that man. I pray for his enlightenment. Beardy twat.
- The first time dad stopped breathing in his sleep. The terrible death-rattle noise that came from him. The awful grey colour of his face. And then the paramedics who treated him with disdain because of his drug addiction, who told the doctors he had HIV. The hospital staff who left him without water or oxygen.
- The day at the hospital when they told us his lungs were covered. No more pretending or hoping. No more 'we can beat this'. Shadows everywhere. Our disintegrating little family went home together for the last time.
- The last few weeks of his life. He lost the use of his arms. His bowel and bladder functions. The ability to swallow. Watching him wither away. It was such hard work, too. Oh more poor, sweet dad. How it aged you. The pain you were in. Yet I did the same as all the others. I am guilty too. I hid the morphine because you were taking so much to try and ease the pain and I was afraid it would kill you. I thought you wanted it because you were an addict. I judged you too. God help me. I let you down. And such ridiculousness! You were dying of cancer and I was timid with your pain relief in case it killed you! Denial of what was really happening never left me. I just couldn't comprehend what was happening, even though I was living it every day. I told you that you weren't allowed anymore and you lost your temper and shouted at me. You said the pain was too much, the pain in your once strong arms. And I cried then as I'm crying now. I took it all from it's hiding place and made you some rice pudding, the only thing you could swallow. The very next day the doctors started injecting you with dia-morhine. The end was so near and I still didn't realise.
- The morning I found you. The last time I ever saw you. And I thought you'd wake up for me, dad. I really did.
I don't think you'll wake up for me anymore. As time moves by and my life changes I still ache for you and feel such regret that you can't be here to witness all that has changed. I sometimes wonder if I am far away from you now; if in learning to live this new reality without you means that you become a distant memory. I don't want that. But time does ease adjustment, it does provide the distraction of life. For me at least.
Still, the bouts of crying grief still emerge with intensity and when I least expect it. They like to come and remind me that none of it was a film I saw or a story I heard or a bad dream I had; they remind me that the pain was real, the loss is real and both will continue to do so. As I grow older I know I'll miss you more. I wish you could see the woman I'll become. I wish I could have visited you as a forty-something lady to have a chat and make you tea and tell you I love you and still feel like your little girl even though I'd be grey and a little wrinkled.
I wish.
