A Turkey For Your Thoughts

It’s been ages since I last blogged, and although I usually write about current affairs, today I just need to convey my thoughts and emotions about a personal matter.

Today is Thanksgiving. I am sitting in the basement of my mother’s house. While I tend to hide out in the lower reaches of the house on most holidays, today I hide not for the usual reasons – you know the reasons, the same reasons you too sneak away from your family for a time every family gathering or so – but because the sight of my step-dad is too much to bear. He is dying. Stage four lung cancer. Chemotherapy has taken his white hair. His signature mustache is no longer. He is frail yet bloated from multitudes of medications. He wheezes with every breath. This round of chemo has tattooed his skin with red blotches of varying shapes and sizes.

Arcade Fire drowns out the vibrations from his giant oxygen machine. The melodic tunes also muffle my sobs.

My father passed away six years ago. I know what it is to lose a parent. But my father did not have cancer.

You hear from so many people about how ugly cancer is. But until you experience it first hand, you really do not know how hideous it is.

My grandma died from bone cancer. And maybe because I was child, I do not recall how the cancer ravaged her body. Or maybe because my mind thought it best to block the images, my only memory of that time consists of me pushing her down the hallways of the hospital, running as fast as I could, as if her wheelchair was a racecar speeding down a winding track towards a checkered flag.

My mom calls me every day. Every time I hear my phone ring or listen to my voice mail, I expect to hear my mom wailing uncontrollably, barely audible, attempting to explain that the man I have grown to see as my dad has died.

I don’t know why I am sharing this with you. I haven’t really confided my fears or my sadness with my friends. I suppose I don’t want to burden them. But I also suppose that if I talk about it, I have to face the reality that he is going to die soon.

Today I face the reality that this my last Thanksgiving with my step-father.

You’re supposed to reflect on what you are thankful for during the Thanksgiving holiday...

I am thankful that I have had the honor to know Fred Mahoney.

I am thankful that he showed my mother what unconditional love is. He was the first man in her life to treat her with respect. And although my mother is experiencing much sadness as she watches the man she loves wither away, I know that he has brought her much happiness over the past thirteen years.

I’m scared of what will become of my mom after he passes.

Too scared to delve any further into that thought…

So I will end here. I think it’s time for pie.

Happy Thanksgiving.