My father is ill with cancer. At first I was angry and pissed off at the world, at the force, at any theistic deity I could point the finger at. My father lived a healthy life and worked hard to provide a good future for his children so of course anger became confusion and I found myself one day standing in the middle of the shopping centre, bawling my eyes out with snot running down my face, strangers staring at me as they casually walked passed and my lover not knowing what to do and frantically opening his bag of chocolates to give to me. My father was diagnosed with a stage 4 carcinoma, the final stages of cancer.
Soon it was all about the blood tests; about the chemotherapy and radiotherapy; about the PET scans, MRI scans and CAT scans. I went with my father to the hospital one time for his radiotherapy. I sat in the waiting room with him and 30 others who had the same cancer. He had been in and out of the hospital so many times that he greeted everyone by their names. There was also a little locker room that had my father's name on a locker because he had now become a regular patient.
What felt like another life ago has only been 6 months since. Although the cancer is not gone, my father is much more happier, healthier and active than ever before. Most of my relatives from all over the world flew to my house to celebrate Christmas together. We had 30 people crowding around the dinner table as my father made a speech thanking everybody for their support.
'I will live a long life everybody, I promise you that.'
And we all said cheers to that and ate wonderful food and had a wonderful Christmas.
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| my father and his sister |
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| my grandmother after hearing about my father's diagnosis |
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| my cousin blowing bubbles on christmas day |
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| my littlest cousin biting my oldest cousin after he took her bubble stick away |