Dear John, Week 4
Dear John,
Day 28 of your hospital stays marked a huge turning point. You were transferred by ambulance to Mayo hospital in Rochester, MN because of the concern of the internal bleeding in your leg and the possibility that it would compartmentalize, requiring surgery the hospital we were at could not do. We were also excited because we had been told that you didn’t have angiosarcoma, but that you had a different sarcoma that could have a slightly better outlook. Emphasis on slightly. We were hopeful. Finally, we were on the path to see a sarcoma specialist who could help guide the team in Marshfield, WI.
Day 28 on my trip was not so positive. After a frustrating day in Yosemite, we collapsed in CeeCee and looked forward to a day of rest, and to somehow celebrate our first Father’s Day without you. You know how much I hated Father’s Day when we first met.
My dad died when I was seven years old and Father’s Day always came without anything. Nothing. I watched commercials on television about great ways to make your dad feel special, I saw child actors hugging their actor fathers, I saw the greeting cards in the stores, “Best Dad Ever,” and “To My Father on Father’s Day,” and I tried to look the other way. Father’s Day always seemed like the longest day of the year for me. A few years after my dad died, I saved some of my allowance money, walked to the closest store, bought a pink and blue carnation (one for my brother and one for me), walked to the cemetery and taped the flowers to his stone in the mausoleum. I wrote “Happy Father’s Day” on the tape with markers, smiled to myself and walked home. A few days later I walked back there to see the flowers, but they had been removed. I went home and told my mom who said, “Why did you waste your money on something like that? Your father isn’t there anyway, and the cemetery doesn’t allow decorations in the mausoleum. That’s why I picked it, so that I wouldn’t have to tend to it and plant things.” Father’s Day after that were just plain painful.
Years later, after I met you, I took you to his stone and showed you the spot where I had taped the flowers. The residue from the tape had remained over the years and you touched it, commenting on how surprised you were that it was still sticky. After we had children of our own, Father’s Day became about YOU, and I enjoyed it again. We tried hard each year to do little things that would make you feel special, while also doing things for your father, who was also alive.
Five years ago, we took your dad to Madeline Island on the ferry for his birthday and for Father’s Day. He had been inkling to go on the ferry until the time came, and then he was nervous. He yelled at me as I waited in line to drive the car on the ferry, “I don’t want to do this anymore. Turn around!” he ordered me. “Oh, no!” I said, “We are going on the ferry and you are going to love it.” And he did, and so did you and I. Who would have guessed that five years later we would have lost both of you?
So here I am again, hating Father’s Day while trying to make sure that the day isn’t as painful for our girls as it was for me. I made up a batch of my homemade pancakes for breakfast and then we drove some more hilly, twisty roads to the closest town. About thirty minutes later, I pulled into a Dollar Tree and saw several kids holding Father’s Day balloons while their mothers said, “Now let’s go and take those to your daddy!” The girls heard to, they told me later. Alena said, “I just can’t wait for this day to be over.” I know that feeling so well.
I warned the workers that I would be wanting 20 balloons. Four balloons for each of your girls to send off into the sky with little notes to you on them. There were four for
me, too. As usual, I told them about our trip and as usual, the people listening responded by commenting on how wonderful the idea of this trip was.
While I was telling the story, Alena had found a small sunglasses emoji stuffed animal, but she didn’t want me to buy it. Later, when Kady brought it up to the check out, I asked her, too, if she wanted it. She said no, but the lady behind me in line decided that she wanted to buy it for the girls. Such a sweet gesture. It was the only one in the store, and it now sits next to your hand turned wooden urn.
Finally, I went to the hardware store to get something that I need for the next part of the trip, and Kady said, “This is the perfect thing to do for daddy on Father’s Day. Go into a hardware store!” She was right. The smell inside of the store made us think of you. At the checkout, of course, I again shared our story and the woman was clearly taken with it. “What kind of cancer did he have?” she asked me.
“Angiosarcoma,” I told her, expecting that she, like us, had never heard of it.
“My mother had that,” she replied. “She was 72 when she was diagnosed 10 years ago and died three months later.” she said, her eyes visibly filling with tears. “How old was your husband?”
I told her that you were 54, and that you had died unexpectedly after only five months. I relive that day so many times, just like I relived the day my father, my mother, and your parents died. It’s what people do, but that day early last October was pure torture…. But that story is for another day.
We were ready to head back “home”. We had our balloons, the refrigerator was stocked up with the food we need for the next few days, and I got the reflectix that I needed for CeeCee. All that was left was to drive the curvy road back “home” and set up the balloon release.
The girls wrote notes on their cards for you, I wrote some for Alicia, Anna, and myself, and we went outside. It felt good.
At least we did something about you today, unlike the Father’s Days of my own childhood. Alicia and Anna released their own balloons where they were, too. Lots of
love floating up for you today. Kady wrote the same thing on all of her cards, “You were the best daddy!” And Alena wrote different things, but the one that struck me was, “I miss you. It was so unfair what happened to you.” She didn’t want me to read them, but of course, like a good mother, I snuck a peek when she wasn’t looking.
So, now we get ready for the next week. My travels turn from mountains to heat. Temperatures will soar into the 100s for the next couple of weeks and I’m terrified about driving in the heat. Do you remember the tire blowout we had in Savannah, GA? I don’t want a repeat of that, except that that blowout also gave us the opportunity to eat at Love’s restaurant, which became a favorite family story. Fresh fried alligator taken from the river next to the restaurant THAT morning! “Tastes like chicken,” we joked!
When I started the trip, I really didn’t know why I was doing it, other than as a duty to you and to get away. I knew that I would enjoy things and I knew that it would be wonderful and hard at the same time, but something unexpected has been slowly happening. There is a lightness, an inner joy that I’m starting to see in the girls and also in myself. We play a little more, joke a little more, and seem to have a little more patience with each other. You’d be so proud of them! They are getting it, and it’s so sad that it had to take such a major trauma for that to happen, but any change in them is because of YOU. We talk about you all of the time. We talk about the silly things you did, your sunglasses emoji, your favorite foods, and of course any time they want to do something and I tell them, “No,” they respond with, “But daddy is saying he wants us to!” Yeah, thanks for that!
So we will keep going, keep telling our story, keep connecting with new people, and keep seeing what each new day brings. And more than anything, especially today, I just want you to remember that you are loved more than you will ever know and that you will be loved until the end of time.
Happy Father’s Day Honey!
Love,
Your penguin.
June 17, 2018
Day 29 of 83
If you are interested in learning more about RVing, here’s Everything You Need to Know!
