There are times in my life that I’d love to go back to, times that I would like to go back to my younger self and tell her it is going to be okay, that the pain is going to make me stronger, that it will add to my character, to make me a better person.
There are also times where I have wished that I could go back and right some wrongs, and make different choices. Not that I regret the choices that I have made, but I do think I may have been too cautious, that there are in fact walls, walls that are a lot higher than I thought…I’d even go so far as to say that I add to those walls every day…..there aren’t a lot of people that I trust and I am damn scared of getting hurt and being hurt. But it happens and its a part of life. And we. Have to move forward.
The hurts that scare me the most?
The unavoidable ones.
I’d always been a daddies girl. He was a pretty quiet guy, he wasn’t perfect, but he was a good person. He’d also been pretty healthy and health conscious, other than the fact that he smoked and had a few drinks now and then.
In the end of 2007 he began having health issues and in a few short months was misdiagnosed repeatedly until he was booked into hospital with severe joint pain. In not even two days we had our first major scare, when they diagnosed cancer(after extensive testing) and on the 7th of April 2008 suffered multiple pulmonary embolisms(blood clots to the lungs), of which he was very lucky to survive according to a cardiologist.
He was in and out of hospitals for the next few weeks, either for testing or for transfusions or blood tests and for treatment plans for the cancer which had metastized throughout his body(Non Hodgkin’s B Cell Lymphoma a very rapid spreading cancer as it travels via the lymph through the body).
The evening before he died I remember visiting him and treating him to a foot massage. I also had a bit of a motivational talk with him about him beating the cancer.
The following morning, 26 April 2008, he passed away in his bed in front of my mother, my brother and paramedics.
I had been called by my mother earlier that morning to say that she was getting my dad back to the hospital as he was taking another turn for the worse. I was on my way to work with my ex, and instead of going through to see him, I told her that I would go to hospital after work to see him.
An hour later I got the call from my mother telling me to get myself to his place as soon as. But it was already done. My father had passed.
When I arrived, we waited until the paramedics came out and gave us the official news. I was with my little sister in the car at the time and all I had to see was my mother and brothers body language.
It was nothing short of devastating. And for a moment I cracked. My world shattered. But I had to piece it back together again immediately.
I was 6 months pregnant at the time. And as much as I wanted to give into the darkness I had to pull myself together and look after the child that was growing inside of me. It was probably the hardest thing to do. I had been smoking 8 cigarettes a day while pregnant, but the week after and leading to his funeral that number went to a staggering 40 a day. Something I am ashamed of but the only way I could emotionally cope. I couldn’t drink myself away as I might’ve done otherwise. The pain was raw wound that never really healed until long after I had had my daughter, when every now and then I could give into a grief that I hadn’t been able to express.
I still do wish that I had hugged him a little tighter, stayed a little longer, spoken to him more often, visited more and told him I loved him. I sometimes wonder if it would’ve made a difference going that morning when my mother first called.
But I believe that when a person dies and how that person dies is not an accident.
There is nothing anything of us can do to prevent death. and there is nothing we can do to change the past.
The best we can do is do our best now, to make our lives worth it…to make theirs worth it.
