My dad

For those of you who didn't see my post on b.org, I just found out today that my dad has taken a turn for the worse, and his condition is now terminal. We don't really know what happened, since we were all so optimistic when his tests from June came back cancer-free. But his health started going downhill not long after our visit. At first they hoped it was just the effects of the chemo and that he'd improve over time, but it's become clear that's not the case. He's not very coherent and is having trouble feeding himself and getting around the house. They're going to have a hospice nurse come into the house every day, I think starting next week, so that will lighten my mother's burden a little bit.

Mom told me last--I think my brothers all knew for at least a few days before me. I guess I'll always be the baby of the family, and while I wish she'd told me sooner, I do understand. We're so very far away, Annabel is at a demanding, time-consuming age, and while I haven't told her just how stressed I am over money, I'm sure she can read between the lines about why I'm looking for a regular job instead of sticking with freelancing.

When I got off the phone with her, I called my brother David, the only one of the four of us who still lives nearby. He couldn't tell me much I didn't already know--we don't really know if the problem was that the chemo didn't take care of all the cancer or if the chemo itself weakened him too much. David thinks he has anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, but that's just based on his own observations. However, he promised to keep me up-to-date.

This is going to be very difficult for my mom. Which of course goes without saying. They've been married for over 52 years, and how *do* you get used to being just one after having been two for so long? I remember a conversation when I was down there, when I was talking to my niece Angela, who is only 6 years younger than me and has a toddler of her own. We agreed that while we loved Laura and Annabel, we really missed being able to do things by ourselves. Angela wanted to go to the beach with just her girlfriends, and I wanted to travel solo anywhere really, but maybe a writers conference, because I love being in a room full of writers. Just because it'd be so relaxing to go somewhere and be responsible for no one but myself. Mom overheard, and said she just couldn't understand us--she'd never wanted to travel alone, and why would we want to get away from our families? I'm sure a lot of that came from her fears of losing Dad, but she married young by current standards, when she was 20, so she's really never known true solitude.

I'll miss him. He's such a very intelligent man who never lost his curiosity or his ability to adapt to a changing world. And he's so mellow and unflappable in a family full of worrywart scenery-chewers with hair-trigger tempers--the part of me that stops flying off the handle with worry as soon as things are really serious and rises to the occasion under pressure, I owe to him.

He'll be 76 on Monday. I hate that Annabel will never know him, but love that I can see him in her face, especially when she's intent on something. I hate that I'll never be able to place a book of my authorship in his hands. And I hate that he never got to go to Australia. He always talked about how much he wanted to see it.

But he's lived well. He's loved, and been loved in return. He's made the world a better place because of the life he chose to live.

I'm proud to be his daughter.