I haven't written here in a long time...since Addie's birthday back in December. There have been a lot of new changes in our lives. Correction: unexpected news in our lives.
The day I found out my dad was diagnosed with ALS, we had gone to a little boy's birthday party at a park in the afternoon. It was a spontaneous party where everything turned out absolutely perfect in a way it wouldn't have if it was planned ahead of time. The weather was gorgeous--the air was warm with the faintest cool breeze, and it was that golden time of the afternoon where the sun was just sinking into the hills. We blew bubbles and the kids squealed and chased them around on the grass, faces covered in chocolate cake. I had a moment of pure contentment seeing such unfiltered joy. We drove home happy and tired.
My dad called me...was it on the phone, or did he catch me on Skype? I told him about the day we had and then the subject somehow veered into health insurance, life insurance. Making sure we were prepared for all cases considering we had children.
He told me that his oncologist recently informed him he was free of cancer, one year after his surgery to remove it. I gave a little cheer, which he interrupted with,
"...and I saw a neurologist a week later and I have ALS."
I can't finish the rest of the conversation because I will start crying again. I didn't know what ALS was. Now I do and I wish I didn't. Or I wish I knew what it was in general, but not for this reason.
This really, really, really sucks. And then some.
I vacillate between feeling calm and accepting, to overwhelmed and terrified, to devastated and angry, to strong and grateful. Grateful because there is not a single time or event in our relationship that I regret or feel badly about or wish we had done things differently. That I know the man my father is, and I have been crazy lucky to have experienced an idyllic childhood with a strong, supportive, eternally-optimistic, goofy, a million-other-positive-adjectives father.
That's all I want to write about now.
