Eleven years without you.

 

An entry I wrote in my LJ when I was sixteen:

September 26, 2003

There is a framed photograph in my living room of my father, sister and me at the dinner table. The picture dates: November 26, 1992, Thanksgiving. We are all smiling and wearing our best attire. I am on my dad’s left side, and my sister is on his right side. My sister and I are both making faces at the camera, while my dad holds a wine bottle in his hand and smiles his bright and lovely smile. An overwhelming nostalgic feeling reaches me. Suddenly, I am out of the time warp and I realize I am no longer five years old, I no longer live in that house and my father is no longer alive.

I enjoyed being photographed simply because I was a cheerful child. I think youth is that way – that’s what my religion teacher tells me. During our youth, we have the opportunity to absorb and learn everything because we want to. Life is taken advantage of way too often. It hurts to look at these pictures that date back ten to twelve years ago, because I find myself wanting to be the vivacious child I once was.

My holidays were always full of laughter and eating. My close family and family friends would come over to eat turkey for whichever holiday it was. I remember getting so bored and tired at these get-togethers, and my dad would be the only considerate one by watching the television with me until I fell asleep.

As I grew older, my social life increased. By the fifth grade, I barely made time for my family, but I always got the chance to converse with my dad about my thoughts as he walked me to school. The few minutes that we walked together felt great because we always had something to talk about. One May morning in my sixth year of elementary school, my dad told me he couldn’t walk me to school because he had to go to a doctor’s appointment. I felt somewhat disarrayed because he had been feeling sick to his stomach. A week later, he was hospitalized. I was only twelve; I didn’t know what exactly was going on. My dad apologized for not being able to walk me to school, but I assured him that it was fine. That same week, my dad was diagnosed with colon cancer.

In my transition from sixth to seventh grade, my family and I had to move out of the lovely house that we had lived in for twelve years because the landlord had sold it. We moved up the block to a house, which was mediocre in comparison to the former house. The summer in between my sixth and seventh grade was absolutely awful. My dad always felt sick, and I was in such desperation because I didn’t want to loose him. I would accompany him to chemotherapy on Thursdays. I continued to do so even though it got in the way of my schoolwork. All that ran through my mind was his survival. I forgot about my social life, but kept up with my schoolwork because my dad loved my good grades. His health was diminishing at a rapid pace. On November 17, he was taken to Calvary Hospice, a place where AIDS and cancer patients go to pass away. That week was probably the most painful of my sixteen years in this world. He died a week later on Thanksgiving morning.  

When this picture was taken, I was only five and I would have never imagined losing my father a few years later around that same date. 

I never imagined losing my father. 

It was so difficult for me to deal with his death because he was my closest friend. I hate cancer, I hate disease and I hate my father's misfortune. My father was such a good man and didn’t deserve any of this. It hurts to see pictures that remind me of my lovely childhood. 

It’s been about four years since his death and it’s ok to hurt, but I’d rather take action. I am currently working on a research project in North Dakota to find a chemopreventative agent for the formation of aberrant crypts in the colon, which is a huge factor in colon cancer. I hope my dad is proud of me.