As I sit down and reflect on the kid I was about six months ago, I think of someone who was searching for an event or moment that would define them. I would often see stories of successful people on TV and they would tell of stories of their hardships and how they conquered their situation. I would ask myself what hardship am I troubled by. I could never come up with anything other than the normal teenage struggles, until my mother informed me of my father’s cancer.
The word cancer never really meant much to me before, just a disease that I knew was deadly, and to be honest, to this day, I still am no expert on the disease. My junior year was coming to a close and my baseball team was making a historic run into the state playoffs, I was just living in the moment and enjoying each moment. One night during spring break after one of my games, my mom came in to talk to me, nothing out of the ordinary, just small talk until she dropped the bomb: Stage 4 Lung Cancer. An almost certain death sentence.
In a way I knew this was coming – my father was a longtime smoker – and I figured if anything would beat the man who seemed unstoppable it would be cancer. It didn’t matter how much I expected it, I sat there in that moment with the stare that ripped through souls and just begged the question “why me?” I cried that night, I cried a lot. It didn’t take too long for the realization to set in: my father may not be around too much longer. At initial observations the estimate was one year, but what did one year mean? My father would not see me graduate; he would never meet my wife and would never get to play with his grandkids. That was futuristic thinking, but it was reality.
It took me awhile to get used to these crude facts I faced. I broke down at random times and hoped for a miracle just as anyone would. Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months and nothing got better. There were random moments of what looked like progress, days of unusual amounts of physical exertion, which just months before was the normal considering my father was a carpenter with an expertise at building decks. I looked at a man who used to be filled with strength and an unstoppable will, now confined to a bed and imprisoned in a room that seemed smaller every day.
There were happy moments through all the heat. During a important game in my team’s playoff run, I came in to pinch hit at a crucial situation; it was the first time I had seen action in weeks. I was able to ignite a rally and we eventually won, clinching our spot in the next round. After the game, my first call went to the man who spent countless hours with me during my baseball career.
Summer came and went. My time consumed by baseball and friends, my father became a second thought. His condition continued to worsen and, at the time, I felt like it was a hassle to care for a man who put me in the center of his focus for 17 years. He began to become delusional, and he no longer was the man I could talk to for hours about the randomness of topics. He was breaking down and it was hard for me to watch. It all became a blur, and the next thing I knew he was gone. I was saddened but I knew it was time for me to step up. The previous months had matured me into a man who was still trying to be the senior in high school, trying to have fun.
I am no longer an average kid. I have a story to tell that defines who I am today. I look back through my entire experience, which continues to grow with each day, and can only be thankful for the time I was able to spend with my father. I strive to continue and make him proud because I know he is watching. Now he just has the best seats in the house.
