'Getting through...'

Some of you will have noticed that there has been something of a hiatus in my blog posts over the last month or so. Well, it’s been one of those times when life decided to happen all over me. I went through a change in relationship ‘status’; as a result of which I had to find an apartment to rent; as a result of which I had an almost month long battle with Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications company, to get the phone connected and my internet set up. That was only finalised yesterday.

And...

In the middle of all this I discovered that my father has advanced pancreatic cancer, which has spread to his liver and lungs. Now, my father is eighty-seven years old, so eventually something like this was bound to happen. I am in Adelaide at the moment, where my parents live, staying with my sister. Adelaide is about 3000 km away from my home in Cairns. It’s a big country.

Now, I’m pleased to say that my father is in no pain, but he is losing weight and becoming weaker by the day. His worst problem is the difficulty he has breathing. It makes talking a herculean task. Being unable to care for himself he is now receiving palliative care in a nursing home. My mother, although physically quite robust, is not able to take care of herself either, and she is now in the same home—not necessarily the blessing it might seem at first sight, but that’s another story, which will probably never be told.

So my mind has been on other things.

One of the things I have realised is how easy it is to slip into a ‘getting through’ mode of being. The last four weeks have needed to be gotten through rather than lived. I just needed to get through the task of finding an apartment... Through the battle with Telstra... Through the emotional hardship of facing my father. I just have to get through this weekend, not just facing my father, but facing my mother who can [he says with some restraint] be a difficult woman.

I would not want this ‘getting through’ to become habitual, to form the consistent pattern of my life, or become my overriding attitude to life. Life is to be lived, not endured.

Despite my father’s poor prognosis, and despite his obvious physical difficulties, he is in good spirits. He is facing the situation with dignity, courage and even humour. Of course there is fear, and sometimes humiliation, when nurses have to assist him when he goes to the toilet; but he is facing up to these fears and humiliations, and talking about them. In short, he is being heroic. My father has not lived a ‘great’ life. In many ways, from the ouotside, it seems like a rather small, insignificant life. But he is a big man within that small life. I have always suspected this, and I suppose there have been moments when I (and probably he) might wondered what and who he might have been in different circumstances. But now some of that greatness of spirit is shining through for the world to see.

I realised as I prepared to fly down to Adelaide that there was a chance he could even die before I got here. He could still die this weekend. Even if he doesn’t, this might well be my last chance to see him. I wanted to say something to him, without embarrassing him, without becoming too mushy and emotional. I wanted to say to him that the things I like about myself, the things I consider to be my true strengths... These things I owe to him.

I had the chance to say it, and for that I am thankful.