A death in the family

Samantha had booked a taxi to take us to our motel. She commented on how good I looked in the suit and that I should consider wearing it more then three times in my life.

The second time I had worn a suit was at my cousin’s wedding two years ago. I remember getting delightfully drunk and dancing all night to bad music.

The first time I wore one was at my father’s funeral when I was fifteen. He was diagnosed with hepatocellular liver cancer, which in almost all cases is terminal within a year of diagnosis. When the specialist first told Dad what the blue blobs were on the MRI scans I was told to leave the room and wait outside. I may have been young but I knew that this meant bad news according to the movies on television.

Mum and my older brother Sam used to pick me up early from school so we could meet Dad at the hospital just before his weekly chemotherapy sessions would begin. He wanted his family around during that process. I didn’t understand why at the time.

We would then take him home and he would seem relatively healthy throughout the remainder of the week.

Life went on like this for about six months. He was always sick but never worse then he was the week before. It seemed like the therapy for the time being was a success. The cancer was not aggressively developing at all.

On the seventh month he became very unwell. The cancer had metastasised to his bones causing him excruciating pain throughout his legs and at times he was unable to walk. The specialist gave us a wheelchair for him to get around on when walking was too hard. The pain in his legs would come and go in waves. He would be relatively painless for two days and then incapable of moving the next. On these days it didn’t seem like the morphine tablets were helping at all.

On one particular week when he was doing well, I decided to take the wheelchair for a spin in the house whilst Dad was sleeping. Mum was working and my brother was at university so I was home by myself with Dad. This was fine since I knew which tablets Dad had to take when the pain would become stronger.

I tilted the wheelchair back so that it’s back would be almost touching the ground and I was balancing the chair with all my strength with my arms. You do these things when your fifteen and bored. Dad had just woken up to go to the toilet and I tried to hold the position of the wheelchair hoping that he was gong to be impressed with my physical aptitude.

When he opened the door and saw what I was doing in the lounge room, something broke inside of him. He fell to the floor in a heap crying and screaming about a new pain that he had not felt before on the right side of his hip. I ran up to him to help but all he kept on yelling was, ‘Why did you that!? Why? Why do you have to be such a silly boy? Why? Why?’ At fifteen you don’t realise what your terminal father, who only has months to live, would feel when he sees his youngest son playing on what will be his last form of transportation.

The next appointment with the specialist revealed that the cancer had also rapidly spread to his brain and that there wasn’t much time left. He was in the hospice within the week. I was always filtered away so that I wouldn’t see much, to make it easier on the young one in the family. I was normally never allowed to be in Dad’s room by myself except on one occasion. Mum and Sam needed to go outside for a smoke and they let me stay in Dad’s room by myself for the first time. I stood up from my chair once they had left and slowly started walking towards my father. He was always in and out of consciousness. A cd was in the corner of the room playing sound effects of ocean waves breaking. As I walked up to him I looked into his eyes and knew that he could see mine. He tried to sit up for a brief moment but it was too hard so he laid straight back down. He started to speak.
‘Ioju… could you… no… the car has the ignition… the birds…
‘Dad, what do you want? What do you want me to do for you?
‘The birds… it’s the car… the red one.. Ioju… don’t forget to get me the birds… In the car…’
‘I don’t understand you Dad. What birds? What do you want me to get?
He was getting terribly frustrated with himself. He began to cry as he was speaking.
‘The birds…. Where are the birds… In the car… Ioju… birds… Ioju…’
I ran out of the room to find a quite place to cry. I now understood that there wasn’t much time left.

A week later when I woke up to find most of my relatives at home, I knew that he had died.

Sam took me for a bike ride at the BMX track to get us away from home. We rode those bikes as hard as we possibly could, taking on all the little hills and gullies with absolutely no sign of fear. We then rode up to the famed viewing spot of our town and sat there for a good hour. All my brother said to me was that if I ever needed a cigarette all I had to do was ask. At that stage I was still a non-smoker.

The funeral occurred three days later. I didn’t feel anything. It seemed too much like a movie to me. Not real. All of these people who I had never seen before had come out of the woodwork to attend. Complete strangers were crying over my father. It was surreal. My auntie came over to me and said that it was ok to cry, to let it all out. I stared back, numb and emotionless.

That night when we got home my mother made us all chicken soup. We watched the television for a little while and then we all went to sleep.

And for some reason, that night, it hit me… hard. I thought about the fishing trips that Dad and I used to go on. The way his hands smelled of oil when he got home from work. The silly way he used to run. His amazing lasagne. His very liberal use of the word ‘bullshit’ when he was watching the evening news. His strength. His smile. His forgiveness.

I was never going to see him again. It was the longest and most painful night of my life.

I gripped Samantha’s hand tighter once we entered the taxi and looked at her. She looked back at me with unadulterated love and compassion. I couldn’t reciprocate that look Samantha. I wish I could. I really do but my mind goes back to that long and lonely night in my room that funeral night. Love is a wonderful thing but I can’t loose someone that I love again. I can’t. I just can’t.