Nana’s Notes:

Case manager said good report from [Papa’s] therapists:  he has gone from being dependent to needing moderate to minimum help; in each area he does 50 to 75% of the work.

Had good speech therapy session – ice chips – will try sips of water tomorrow.  Talking plainer today.

Played Kings on the Corner [in the afternoon] after speech therapy, got really tired after just a short time, rested in bed until dinner.  Ate dinner in bed, all of sandwich, couple bites of rest, one drink of Ensure shake.

Shower and shave after dinner.

Friends came & visited.

 

Email: (from me to two friends)

Can’t wait for a night out with you ladies!

Think you both got the update on my dad from my mom.  She said he was talking even better today and even walked with a walker a bit.  Very encouraging news and really, he’s made such progress in just this past week.  Yet I’m having a hard time being encouraged when every time I see him he talks about just wanting to die, going so far as to ask me to look up verses on God’s view of suicide…. and as I sit there trying to encourage my dad and trying to give him biblical evidence not to take his own life, I’m thinking, “Really, am I having this conversation with my father?!”  Kind of disturbing, to say the least.  I get that he doesn’t want to live in his current state and heaven is much more appealing to him at the moment, but I’m thinking he might be dealing with depression as well.  My mom has talked to his docs about this so at least they’re aware and can prescribe meds if needed.  

Personally, I’m just feeling mentally exhausted these days – feel like we’re in some sort of strange limbo period.  I know you both went through months and months with your parents in difficult health circumstances, and here I am with only a few weeks under my belt.  I’m grateful to have my dad still here, but it’s hard to see him in this state, you know?  He feels it would be so much easier on us if he was gone, yet I know that wouldn’t be the case.  Loved one gone never equals “easy.”

So anyways, that’s the latest.  Tomorrow we’ll go to the consult apt. for his possible radiation treatment.  I’d be surprised if my dad ended up going for that, but hopefully we can get some questions answered about life expectancy with/without treatment, etc.  Seems crazy to even be typing about that… guess all this is still sinking in. 

Okay, so this email is taking me forever long to write because I’m trying to make what I’m writing coherent and my brain is just not cooperating.  Keep adding a sentence here or there and then deleting it.  Feel like I can’t fully wrap my mind around it all and I guess coherently expressing this whole state of affairs just isn’t possible.  So with all that being said, I’ll bring along my couch to wherever we’re heading on our night out and hopefully you’ll allow me to pay your “shrink fees” in margaritas : )

Take care friends, and you’re both a blessing to me as well!

-Kari

 

My Reflections:

Today I pull out the water beads.

Water beads?

They’re tiny, minuscule beads, itsy-bitsy, that expand to squishy little balls of fun when you mix them with water.  They’re used by florists and such as a vase filler and a way to hydrate flowers, but I’d seen them online as a fun tactile activity for kids so I’d picked some up.  I’m not sure if they’re on our Summer Fun List, but today seems the perfect day to make use of them with the boys.

And the water beads don’t disappoint in keeping these boys entertained (for a little while anyway).

Novel fun for my boys:  Check!

 

Later in the day, I’m cleaning up the kitchen after dinner.  The phone rings:  It’s Nana.

“Did you get the email from [your 2nd cousin]?,” she asks.

And I haven’t had a chance to check.  I don’t know what email she’s talking about.  But later I’ll see it:

Hi [Nana] & Kari, 

Many thanks for the updates. We are praying hard for all of you right now and hope [Papa’s] recovery continues to progress. As my mom would always say….prayer and patience. Please continue to keep me in the loop on his progress. I have been checking my mom’s email, but with her passing (hopefully you received that email earlier today), I will cease that once I return home.

Sending you lots of hugs, prayers and good thoughts!

Love,

[Your 2nd Cousin]

And Nana goes on to tell me that her cousin has passed away.  The cousin Nana is so close with, whom she grew up with and shares so many memories with.  The cousin who’s been battling cancer for over two years now, doing all kinds of specialty treatments, flying out of state for state-of-the-art treatments.  The cousin whom Nana & Papa planned to visit on their cross-country road trip right about now… before Papa got sick.

And in the midst of all Papa’s gone through these past few weeks, we hadn’t realized how sick she’d become, that she was so near the end.

And now she’s gone.

And Nana didn’t even have a chance to say good-bye.

And what about the funeral?  The upcoming funeral that Nana would so want to be at?

With Papa’s current condition, it just won’t be possible…

And I can here the deep sadness in Nana’s voice, her voice breaking as she tells me all this, and the sadness wells up in my own heart too.

And we somehow say our goodbyes and I hang up.  And that darn dam once again begins to crack.

J and the boys are in the family room unaware, and I rush upstairs; rush upstairs to let that dam break.  Because it’s okay for my boys to see Mommy sad, but they don’t need to see this.  They don’t need to hear the scary, raw emotion, the uncontrolled spilling out of my sobs.

I steal away in my closet once more, there under my sweaters, skirts, and dresses; there on the floor across from my shoes.  Sobbing and wailing into a pillow hugged close to my chest.

Heart breaking for the loss of my mom’s cousin, such a wonderful person always with a warm smile and welcoming presence.  Who with her kind words had been one of my biggest cheerleaders in my blogging, ever-encouraging in my writing.

Heart breaking for her children, and grandchildren, husband, and Nana and so many others who were close to her and so blessed to have known her.  And who would now miss her unspeakably much.

Heart breaking that she’d struggled and fought and battled her cancer for more than two long years and still hadn’t beat it.

She had battled as hard as anyone could battle and she still hadn’t won.

And added to the tears is the realization that here we are now with Papa, tomorrow going with him to speak with oncologists and discuss treatment options, chemo, radiation, special drugs.

And I wonder what it’s all for.  If it will just be to see him suffer and fight and in the end still not win his battle?

And somewhere in that moment, amidst the throat-catching sobs and puddle of tears, it hits me:

I’ll never be ready to say goodbye.

Treatment or no, I’ll never be really ready to say goodbye to Papa.  Not now, not 6 months from now, and not even 2 1/2 or 10 years from now if by some miracle he lives that long.

Because life is precious and he means so much.  Just like Nana’s cousin had meant so much.  And no matter when their lives are called to an end, none of us can be ready to say goodbye to those we love.  Because their absence does, and will, leave such an enormous hole.

And isn’t that right there a testament to the lives they lived?  Lives lived well.

For those left behind, who is ever ready for that to end?

Eventually J comes and finds me.  Cause he’s good like that.  And we talk, right there on the closet floor and I cry some more.

As J helps me talk things through, I realize something else.  I realize I’ve already had to say goodbye to pieces of Papa that have already been lost.  The grieving has already begun.  And I want my daddy back and he’s not here anymore.  Yes, Papa is still here, but he’s not fully the Papa we once knew.  And I’m not talking about just his physical limitations, but more so his mental, cognitive and emotional state of being.  He’s still Papa, but it’s obvious that his tumor and surgery have caused changes in his brain, in his thinking.  And I know, most likely,  the “Papa” I once knew will never fully return.

I feel the pull.  Papa’s here and I don’t want him to go, whatever his present condition, but he’s suffering and miserable and doesn’t want to live like this.  On the outside looking in, it’s easy to say, “buck up,” “keep fighting,” “God’s still got you here for a reason” (and Nana’s tried that approach w/ him a time or two), but anyone really seeing Papa’s condition, really putting themselves in his shoes, can’t deny that Papa has a point: this is no way to live.  It’s hard to see him suffer.

But life is a gift, and Papa’s still with us, and I’m truly grateful for that.  I might have already said goodbye to pieces of the father I once knew, but his presence still remains.  And the final goodbye has not yet needed to be uttered.

But I wonder.  I wonder how long these little goodbyes of fragments of Papa will go on before the final goodbye is upon us?  How much more suffering and limitations will he have to endure before that time comes?  The future holds no certainty or answers.  All we’re left to do, all we can do, is take the days, with their goodbyes, one by one as they come.

Today that time has come for Nana’s cousin.  And it’s with tear-filled eyes, and tear-stained cheeks that we breathe our final goodbye to her.  And we pray for her family this day and in the days and months ahead, our hearts breaking with the pain of death and a battle hard fought and lost [“lost” at least by the world’s standards].