Sep 12, 2010 19:25
Wednesday, September 3rd, was actually a great day. I had learned about my dad’s diagnosis the day before, but frankly, I wasn’t sad at all- scared, sure, but even that was exaggerating a negative emotion. I don’t invite negativity into my life: even when something terrible happens, I am tremendously good at looking at the positive side. Even in this case, I’d been told that we were going to have a rough four months as he went through treatments- but, honestly, who cares how hard things would get; February 2011 would be a time for many celebrations. My dad would be done with his treatments well in time to attend my graduation ceremony in April!
I was talking with Alex at 11:30p on Wednesday night. We were putting the final editing touches on Hopelessly Devoted to Yami Bakura. We were both laughing hysterically at how funny and pathetic poor ol Bakura looked as he mourned his lost love. The video was uploaded in the early hours of the next day; five hours after logging offline from talking with Alex and Shannon, my mom’s desperate phone call woke me up.
One of my duties on Sunday, September 5th, was to root through all of our family photo albums and find pictures of my dad doing fun stuff. Here’s a picture where he’s wearing hideous 70’s short-shorts that apparently women actually found attractive on men in 1976; here, torturing our old cat by stuffing her into a pillowcase so that she can’t get away from him while he tries to cuddle with her in 1980; here he is in London teasing some castle guards in 1985; here, accepting a birthday present and a hug from his little redheaded daughter in 1995…
I never doubted for even a millisecond that my father loved me. While something like love is an unspoken language in many ways, he articulated it tremendously frequently, too; it was one of the final phrases that he said to me on Wednesday, August 18th. Our actual last conversation was something along the lines of me saying “Yeah I’ll probably come back for the labor day weekend. I should pick up my costume because I don’t want to take it now.” He’d said something like “Oh, alright, I might see you then.” Before those lines, we’d exchanged “I love you”s.
He was also so very, very good to the rest of my family. He told my mother, all the time, that she was beautiful. Every time we all went out to dinner together, they would kiss on the side of the car- they did this literally every time; the last time being Sunday, August 15th; we had been at our favorite Thai restaurant to celebrate, actually, saying goodbye to me, days before I was going to go back to school.
He was not done raising me; his two children are 20 and 16. But, I do know that I learned a tremendously important lesson by watching him, explained somewhat more indepth in my “Negatives” part of this essay: that attitude of having better things to do than not be productive during every millisecond. Allowing things like drama or the desire for instant gratification to affect you means that you are showing signs of tremendous weakness, and you will most likely have suffering in your future. At least, I have no reason to believe that this isn’t true: I believe wholeheartedly that my actions as a tremendously successful teenager will make my middle-aged life easy, just like his was. Now, as I completely ignore any pathetic desire to be lazy, try drugs, have sex or stir up drama with friends, I realize how unbelievably easy my life is, now, because I also ignored these things when I was 16; when I’m 25, it’s inarguable how much of a clear mind, and secure and easy life, I’m setting myself up to have.
Monday, September 6th, was not actually a bad day. I feared that day more than I’ve ever feared anything- I feared that my pastors would force me to worship and give thanks to God, when I am angry with Him, I feared how I would react upon realizing that I’m at my father’s funeral- but, the pastors stood at the podium and said, “We are here too early.” They said many comforting words that didn’t force me to do anything- I found that the service on Monday that I had been so afraid of actually brought me a lot of peace. Easily, 200 people attended the service, and everyone came bearing kind words- the things that I have taken the most comfort in, this weekend.
Tuesday, September 7th, was actually a downright good day. My Aunt Carolyn’s birthday was Tuesday (dad’s sister- I know, right?), and we had a big birthday party for her. All of the family was in town- my grandparents from Argentina, cousins from Sarasota and Los Angeles, my other aunt from Switzerland, and Aunt Carolyn herself lives in Boulder- so, it was a big gathering of people who were desperate for something to celebrate; therefore, we made it into a bash. My grandparents performed the Argentinean tradition of grilling 500 pounds of sausages; I got ahold of a 6-layer chocolate cake. Things like this remind me of how good my life actually is.