“Don't stuff it,” she told me last night.
I had to laugh.
Who me? I'd never do such a dastardly thing, is what I thought. But my laugh was silent, choked by the tears clogging my throat. Stuffing is what I do best.
My dad's bone cancer didn't just flare up last weekend, it outright attacked him and left him in unbearable pain. They weren't home, so Mom drove from Oregon (or was it Washington? I don't know. My mind is foggy on the details.) to Arizona to get him in to the doctor. Once the pain was under control, which took quite a bit of doing, they did chemo.
He called me late yesterday afternoon, on his way home to let me know. His voice was hoarse but the pain I'd heard last week wasn't so close to the surface. Thankfully I'd had about 3 minutes' notice that Dad wasn't doing well...
Jim got home from work yesterday afternoon in record time and before he was even out of the van he asked, “Have you talked with your dad?” Everything inside me sagged. I had fallen asleep in my chair (I'm finally recovering from VBS) and was groggy, but his words sliced through the fuzz in my head. He filled me in on Mom and Dad's weekend as we carried his lunch box and water cooler in. I had no sooner sat down than my phone rang. I didn't have to look to know it was Dad.
...those three minutes helped me focus on what Dad was saying. The chemo schedule, the traveling back and forth between the mountains and the valley for doctor visits as long as he can. Later, as I pieced things together in my mind that phrase caught me. As long as he can. They only live in the mountains until sometime in October when they move back down to the valley. As long as he can. It's June now, that means there's July, August and September until October comes. Three months. As long as he can? October is when they made their semi-annual rounds visiting kids and grandkids. Life is changing this year in so many ways. And it snuck up on me. As hard as I tried to be prepared, it caught me off-guard.
Don't stuff it, she told me last night as we talked on the phone.
Coming from my sister, another queen of stuffing, I had to listen to her. She knows me well. Her words cut through the fuzz that had grown into heart static, and the tears started. There's nothing wrong with tears, except that I don't cry too often and very few people see me cry.
So, I'm not stuffing it. I'm writing it since that's what I do.
I've not talked to Mom. I know very few details. If I was told, they're lost in the fuzz and static. But I know that what was once on the horizon is here. Bone cancer is doing what prostate cancer and heart problems and Agent Orange failed to do.
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