The Adults in the Room

My dad is sick. Real sick.

People ask me, how couldn't he know he was sick? He's lost 80 pounds in six months and hasn't had an appetite. And I tell them, "You don't know my Dad," and I explain how he has found it a point of pride that he hasn't been to a doctor in over 35 years. He used to boast that it was a sign of his robust health.

Of course, we knew that wasn't true. My father has chain smoked since he was a teenager, often eschewing engagements where he couldn't light up. He could never sneak up on people, his labored breathing gave him away. He never complained about it; it just became part of him, like his smoky clothes and deep, resonating voice (he's moonlighted as a commercial announcer). My siblings and I learned to make a joke of it, when we heard him sauntering into the room, slowly drawing breath in, then out, one of us often said, "Here comes Darth. May the force be with you."

I said to my mother before flying into Chicago, "What did you do with his cigarettes?"

"We've hid them," she said, without much conviction. I guess, as did she, that it didn't make much of a difference now.

My mother warned me: "Just know...he doesn't look the same."

I was back in Chicago six months ago and had noticed my normally rotund father seemed to be slimming down. He's had a perma-tan since sailing had become his passion, back in his 20s. Somewhere in his 40's however, he'd given it up. I don't know why. All I know is that he was always home now, watching TV or playing bridge on his computer, not off at the docks, where he used to go for days at a time during the summer. He'd stopped sailing years ago, but, now 60, he still had the tan. Now, with the weight gone, he had looked like the George Hamilton-type presence I always insisted he would look like if he just got in more exercise.

"You working out?" I had asked my Dad.

"Not really," he'd said. "A few crunches here and there. I'm just not eating as much."

"You're not eating at all!" my mother had corrected him, with that irritating, panicky tone that she used to give me as an adolescent, when she needlessly worried about me being too thin. We both ignored her. I mean, look at the man--he looked great!

The phone call, just two weeks ago, was worrying, but not crisis inducing.

"He's stopped eating," Mom said.

"That's weird. Dad always eats," I said. Since I could remember my father was one to clean off his plate, have seconds, maybe thirds. Mom hated to cook; I was raised on prepared or frozen foods and takeout. Still, canned or frozen, she managed to get vegetables in us somehow. Dad, on the other hand didn't really bother with them. He was more a meat and potatoes kind of guy--no vegetables unless they were incidental, mixed in for flavor or doused in something. He kept a coffee can of bacon grease under the kitchen sink, which he used as liberally as Julia Child used sherry--to give things a little bit of oompf.

"Things are different now," Mom said. "He doesn't like food. He looks different."

I said to my mother, more out of duty than anything, "You have to get him to a doctor. Don't call me back until you do."

It wasn't that I wasn't concerned, but somehow my father has had us all snowed to the point of believing he must really be made of stainless steel. All of his bad health habits, and he still insisted that he felt great. Sure, a few teeth had fallen out recently. But that kinda thing's cosmetic and can be easily fixed. Those morons always tried to get you--those health insurance companies, he said. They fooled you into thinking you needed them before anything was wrong. You always paid out the yinyang for things. He wouldn't provide them with one cent more than necessary.

I checked in a few hours later, thinking my mother didn't bother to talk to my father. I knew she was concerned, but everyone in my family knew you didn't make requests of my father; you didn't insist on anything. It was no longer because he was the authority, but because he wouldn't accept yours.

"I told him I'm taking him to a doctor, and he said, OK," she said, with hesitation. "We're going tomorrow."

My stomach dropped. His agreeing to see the doctor scared me more than him not going at all.
~~~~~~~~~~

My sister and I had the same reaction when we were told the news: "Should I fly out, now?" B-friend thought the answer was obvious, "Of course!" he said. "It's your father!" But it was much more complicated than that, and too complicated for me to explain. It was instinctual to ask whether it was appropriate to fly out. Instinctual, I suppose because flying out on such short notice, for some other reason than a holiday, suggested something was wrong. Suggested change.

My brother picked me up at the airport, Mom in tow. She pulled me and my backpack to her.

"How's he feeling?" I asked her.

"He says he has no pain," Mom said.

"But what else?" I asked impatiently. Mom knew what I was talking about. No one yet knew how Dad was taking the news.

"I don't know," she said. "You know your father."

"Can I see him now?"

"Let's wait until tomorrow," she said. "He's sleeping." I suspected that he was rarely awake.

I had dinner with Mom, my brother, Joe, and my older sister, Jenna. Mom seemed light as a feather and happy, as always. As tradition dictated whenever someone came home, we played a trivia game (tonight it was a movie trivia DVD), then got ready for bed.

Being perennially single, I'd become used to sleeping in my Mom's bed when I visited. My twin sister, Julie, often took my old room, splitting the bunk beds with her husband. And my Dad religiously fell asleep in front of the TV every night; his recliner had become his bed years ago. And I liked to talk to my mother until I could hardly keep my eyes open. Julie wasn't in town yet, so I had my old, starchy bunk bed back, but I couldn't seem to leave Mom's room.

"He looks different now," Mom said, warning me again for what I would see tomorrow.

"I know that," I said. "Will he be coming home?"

"I imagine so," she said.

"You OK with that?"

"What if I can't take care of him?"

"We'll help you. And we'll get you help."

"I just don't know what's on his mind," Mom said. She's never considered it an option to ask my father such personal questions. The family's reticence to communicate with my father has been simply learned over time, when he bristled and embarrassed you for asking questions that weren't appropriate, for reasons that weren't clear. You knew that when you came home for a visit you entered his office, chatted for a minute, and then retreated into the family room to be with the rest of the family.

Mom said he'd come into the living room more over the years when my siblings were over, sometimes to refill his cocktail glass, sometimes pausing before going back to his office. "I sense," she had said to me, "that he wants to sit and join us, but he doesn't feel welcome."

Of course, he would be welcome, but asking him to join you might open the door to a host of things. He might bristle and say he's watching something on TV, and you'd wonder why you'd asked. He might take the moment, as he has on occasion, to dump his unfinished political diatribes on you, to the point where you are clear he isn't talking to you so much as he is talking to an audience in his head; you've become faceless. At this point my mother provides "hmmmphs" of annoyance that get more and more frequent, like contractions, until she explodes with a, "we were having a decent conversation before you came in here!" and he retreats back to his lair.

On occasion, when I call and my mother isn't home, he picks up the phone and we chat for a few minutes. If he asks me what I'm up to I immediately bullet point the particulars: I'm still at such and such job; I'm leaving for such and such place on vacation for a week; I'm working on such and such project. We generally stick to facts. If my mother comes home he hands over the phone, and the real conversation ensues.

There were not many angles I could think of for conversing with Dad tomorrow, once I asked "How do you feel?" I'd run out. He didn't appreciate sugarcoating and ersatz pleasantries. He wouldn't respond to being told he was in my prayers, or that whatever happened, it was in God's hands. I don't know how he felt about God anymore, beyond what the nuns taught him in Catholic school. He hated having the obvious stated back to him. I could offer a few bullet points on my current projects, perhaps. I could cry, but that would make him bristle and turn away as if to say, "Christ, Hun, cut it out!"

Something else seemed to be bothering my mother.

"I'm just afraid ... that--I can't believe I'm saying this--it won't be fun anymore. I guess I've just always been a kid. I've done my best to keep it like that, even when he didn't. Now I'm afraid to laugh. I'm feeling like I have to grow up."

I felt like a conversation that had been playing in my head for years was now being read aloud, starting with my mother's call a few weeks before. I knew that her voice would sound the way it did when she told me about his cancer. I'd had this emminent feeling of doom, of confrontation, or, I suppose my mother said it best--of growing up.

Comments

[Laura]

Jory,

So sorry to hear about your father's illness. You and your family are in my prayers.

Laura

[Jill]

Jory,

Boy, can I ever empathize with you and your Mom. This will be a hard and important time. You are in my thoughts and prayers.

Jill

[Julie Leung]

Jory,

Wow. I'm so sorry to hear about your father's cancer. Thank you for your courage to share. May you find peace, strength and love to sustain you all through this time. Please keep us posted.
Thinking of you,

Julie

[Antonella Pavese]

Jory,

I am so sorry to read about your father.

It's so hard to realize that our parents are not really made of stainless steel, and they are more vulnerable than we or them like to admit. That we can lose them. {We kind of suspected it all along, but when we see it, it's all a different matter.)

I am going to bring a little piece of you and your family with me today,

Antonella

[Stacie]

Jory--

Words are truly inadequate at this point. I know the hurt you are going through and wish you and your family the best. Keep us posted. My prayers are with you.

Stacie

[DUST!N]

Jory,

My words can be a shallow comfort during times of uncertainty, so I pray the people who are a tangible part of your life will be a comfort and support to you.

Hoping the best for you and your family. Remember what you said on Tom Peters' blog, "Even the motivators need motivating."

May you find encouragement, enlightenment, and inspiration as you have so freely given it.

[nina]

Oh, Jory. I'm so sorry. Sending lots of good thoughts to you and your family.

[Toby]

Jory -

My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.

[Colleen]

Oh, lordy, Jory. This stuff is so hard on everyone involved.

Be the brave soul you are, keep your heart open and make sure *you* get enough rest. Funny movies help. Ditto anything comforting: now is not the time to be hard on yourself!

I wish you the very best on this rather more difficult part of life. Only good thoughts...

[Jen]

Jory and Joy,

Sorry to hear this news. It's awful to be confronted with mortality like this. Am thinking of you.

[Katherine Stone]

Jory,
There are no appropriate words. You are brave to share such difficulty with the rest of us. I will say a prayer for your family right now.
- Katherine

[Erin]

Jor-
I know this post must have been the toughest to write...I'm thinking of you guys and send my and prayers.

[Erin]

Jor-
I know this post must have been the toughest to write...I'm thinking of you guys and send my love and prayers.

[Felix Gerena]

I hope you and your family are facing this situation with serenity. and love.

Felix

[Jenn]

Oh, Jory! I have no words. I am sitting her sobbing, knowing exactly where you are coming from. Knowing that moment where a phone call made everything change. You know how to reach me if you need or want to talk about this hell that is "growing up".

I am thinking of you and your family and you Dad. I'm here if you need someone who "gets it", sweetie.

Many, many hugs.

[Marilyn]

Oh Jory, I'm so very sorry to hear this news. I was away for a few days dealing with my mother's move...just getting caught up...heading over to your Mom's blog now...

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

Jory, I've just (semi) caught up now with my reading. Thanks for sharing and reaching out.

(Your story is strangely reminscent as my dad was the picture of health and he eschewed seeing doctors - nothing that popping an antacid couldn't cure. And he had cancer too.)

You, your mom and dad and family are in my thoughts and prayers.

[Koan Bremner]

Jory, I am so sorry - it was only when I learned of your father's death that I found this post, unread, like so many others, in my aggregator. And feel awful - for you, for your Mum, yopur brother and sisters - and awful that I didn't read this post (or the similar one on your Mum's blog) before today.

We make connections with people, through blogging - but the practical needs of our lives intrude, and as a result, I hadn't read many blog posts for well over a week. So, I was oblivious to your family's pain - and, not that I could have helped one iota, I wish I had known, and you had known that I cared.

I am thinking of you all.

[Sour Duck]

Sorry to hear about your father, Jory. My thoughts are with you.

[Gary Sheldon]

Many people of this world prefer their partner in life older than them, because they believe that older people have more experiences and they have more too. As for me, I prefer younger partner than because I am a man. Man should be older than women when it comes to an intimate relationship. Well, if you are older than your partner, you are expected to look after her and to take good care to her when you grow old.