Stages of Grief

I have talked before on here about my relationship with my father. Well I got a call from him tonight.

He has a tumor on his back. (As he says that my mind pictures the word. "Tumor." There it sits, in front of my eyes and I think in a vague way how it is tumor, not tumour, in America and how I always have a hard time remember to use American spelling not British, which is probably because I read too many Agatha Christie novels when I was young.) It's several inches long (and I wonder how far it protrudes from his back - aren't tumors bulbous and fluid-filled, like a blister? How did he not notice it until now, if it's that large? How could he miss a large growth on his back?) and they don't know how deep, but after an MRI they think it goes into his ribcage. (He gets confused at this point and has to stop to ask his wife what the doctor had told them.)

"Is this skin cancer?" I ask him, still wondering why he didn't find this earlier, and he says, no, it's called a sarcoma. They don't know yet if it's benign or malignant, but he's seen two doctors and they're both inclined toward an opinion that it's malignant.

If it's malignant, the size means it's pretty much a death sentence he tells me, and then it hits me that this is real, it isn't something seven times removed, but my father and he might die and I start to tear up, fear spilling out of my eyes and down my cheeks, running down the back of my throat. But I'm quiet, so quiet, because he's dealing with enough and I have to be strong and not burst into noisy sobs when he's trying to tell me this.

My sister, C., called me today. Had I talked to Dad lately? she asked. No, I answered her, confused, not for a couple of days. Why? What's happening? Oh, nothing, she replied breezily, and segued very nicely into a story about Dad calling her in a blind panic because he can't reach our youngest sister. Her phone is disconnected and her job says she hasn't worked there in months, he tells C. She asks him to tell her the numbers he called, and sure enough, they're old numbers. The phone is disconnected, because she hasn't lived there for months, and the job is an old job, left behind with the old apartment.

She's good at keeping secrets, C. is.

They don't know yet, Dad said, if they're going to have to cut out bone or just soft tissue. He goes to the city for a CT scan tomorrow.

I ask him how he feels. "Oh, we're just confused around here," he says, and I notice how he turns a question about him into a vague answer about them.

I want to say something, but I don't know what to say. I tell him I love him and I hope he'll be OK. He's been planning a trip in a couple of weeks. That's obviously going to have to be cancelled, but I don't say anything about it. Instead I ask a stupid question about his will, trying to make sure he's taken care of his wife and hasn't done anything stupid like leaving everything to my mother, or us children. But it's a stupid subject to bring up and I try to back out of it, giving explanations and reassuring excuses until the words fill my head and I have to give up and admit to myself that I've just been inexcusably rude to my father.

We hang up and I tell Michael, who, meaning well, says to me, "Well, at least he knows when he'll die," and I have to remind myself that he means well and that screaming at him that I don't want my father to die, I should still have at least another ten years with him, wouldn't accomplish anything positive.

At least the girls have met their grandfather one time, I think, and they love him, but it's not enough, because I want them to know him better and spend more time with him, and it's not fair and I want to be with my family and have my children know them all before anyone dies and it's too late.

I try to call C., but no-one's answering. She's probably out on a date with her husband.

And then I turn on the TV and watch a recording of Get Color, because I'm tired of crying, and I don't know what else to do.