To Be A Fool…

Human tragedy marks the earth daily. Things happen every day to someone. A mother, a father, a child… unless we are a part of it, life continues to move forward for the rest of us. I cannot say that is right or wrong… it is just what I observe. We don’t generally stop going on because of it, unless it is happening to us.

Saturday, my parents received a call confirming that my father has lung cancer. This isn’t a tragedy on a global scale, but it is a tragedy none the less for our family. The doctor said it is “the worst strain he could have… very aggressive and the outlook is not good.” Thursday they will find out more about the prognosis, and how they will treat it. And life goes on for everyone but those of us holding our breath to see what will happen next. Suddenly, although we function as if we are still moving, we are in that limbo where life moves around us, but we are still.

This touches a few people in the circle of our lives, some close friends of the family, but mostly it touches us. My mother, my sister and myself, our spouses, and our children. Most people will hear about it, and cluck and mutter ‘how sad and terrible’ and then they will move forward, not to think of it again unless an obituary shows up in the local paper. They may attend the viewing, send flowers, or bring a casserole. Some may offer up a prayer, and that is a huge blessing to us. But it is mostly just our private battle.

I heard the news as I was packing my children into the car for a birthday party we had been invited to. I knew there was possibly bad news coming… the testing and surgery to remove the fluid and biopsy the tumor they found last week had more than indicated something was very wrong. My father’s worsening health indicated it also. He is not well at all.

I finished putting my children into the car, and drove myself, my husband and my kids to the party. And I wondered, how can I be doing something so normal when life was suddenly not ordinary. How can I sit here making small talk, and passing out cake when my father just received news that will change his life forever… and quite possibly end it.

Yet, for my children, I said nothing. They have a week of school left, and although they know that ‘Papa’ is sick, they won’t know more until we are ready to talk with them about it. And while we have our suspicions, based on the doctors pessimism in that phone call, we won’t know solid facts until Thursday.

Some people came from their church (our CLB, by the way) yesterday to pray over him. My parents have barely attended in years… but they never formally left. It was nice that these people came to pray… it was weird to see some of them that I haven’t seen since we left. It made me long for the ‘family’ that we were once a part of. It was rather surreal to see the dynamics at work that we haven’t been a part of for so long now…. and that is probably information for another post at some point.

Strange week indeed!