Eight months ago to the day i lost dad to cancer and for all that time i struggle to find words to express my sadness and the emptiness i feel not only for not having dad no longer with me but all so for all the things he missed ... all the things we planned to do togehter like going to Les Mans and watch the 24 hour race or going fishing somewhere nice.And what about the things we did not plan but would have been just as good?! Such as watching his children graduate, getting married, having their own children...While growing up we did not always got along ... two sides of the same coin i suppose, but we were always very close. We loved each other in a very peculiar way ... i was his son and he always tried to make sure that i would not make the same mistakes he did. He was young and he was starting a family and he did the best he could according to his own abilities. Everything he had was to share with his family and when - for some reason - it was not enough at least we were all together.
Dad was admitted to hospital on the 02 /06/06 to receive treatment on what appear to be pneumonia and was then diagnosed with a lymphoma. In fact he had a stomach cancer and that he was in a advanced stage of the illness. Innitially his emotional state was very difficult as a result, i guess, of being given a death sentence.
Dad had always been philosofical about life & death ( as a proper african person is ) but after all he had been throughout his life it was not really the way he wanted to go, specially at the age of 52. So he went through depression and anger before he came around to gather the troops and begin his fight for his life. He picked up the phone and he called all of his friends and family to let them know that he had been "caught" by cancer... as if he had not been paying attention or something, it was his humured way of dealing with the facts i guess.
Over the next few months dad really clinch on to his life he did not want to leave us and he always manage to keep a smile and some humour. Even when due to the treatment he was doing , he started loosing his hair, his eyebrows, his teeth, his weight, his mobility. Dad was phisically changing everyday right there in front of me and there was nothing me or anyone else could do.
After a year of chemeoterapy dad was now starting to show signs of depression again and exhaustion from all those months of intense treatment. He was refused to have put a pacemaker in his heart and asked to do his treatment at home continuing to do. He was tired of having needles put through him and seeing other cancer patients dying in his ward.In the following weeks my fathers condition deteriorated more and more until he finally died on the 3rd of June of 2007 at 3am.
In the final weeks of his life( month of May 2007) dad expressed sadness for not having been a grandfather... he said to my mother "tell our grandchildren that their grandad was a really cool guy ok?!" ... he wished me luck for my studies but he said he most likely would not be there to see me graduate ..."make sure you finish it it's really important"... and he asked the family in case of an emergency not to take him to hospital as he did not wish to prolong his pain.
While dad was doing treatment i kept on telling myself that people survive cancer everyday - not all the sufferers but some do... so i never really spoke to dad as if he was going away - never.I sometimes wonder if he wanted me too?! In the back of my mind, with hindsight, i ponder if i should have considered the possibility that he was not going to make it and i should have picked up a pen and paper and gone through some of his happiest memories from his past life. Questions that we never think to ask like :
-how did you feel when mum told you i was coming??
-how did you feel the first time you held me in your arms??
-what about my first birthday??
-what was the first car you ever drove??
-how did you meet mum??
-was it hard being dad??
People in Africa have an old saying - also used by my mother - which is when someone special dies they go up to heaven and turn into a little bright star... and in the evenings if we look really carefully we can see them shining over us up in the sky.Cancer is a horrible, misleading, all consuming , pain staking illness that takes the live's of thoose who are cared for and affects deeply that of the families. It comes without warning and nothing, absolutely nothing prepares you for it. It took my dad away from me but not without leaving me a chance to say ...I love you Dad, wherever you go, wherever you are - your son Alex.
