A moment later, Dad’s fifty-year-old roommate pulled the divider curtain open and glanced at him. “What made you wanna climb it anyway, Bill?” he asked.
My dad’s face lit up as the memory came back to him in vivid detail. “It was always a big dream of mine.”
“Yeah, but there are more interesting mountains out there, more challenging ones, more beautiful ones. What made you choose Everest?”
“Simple. It’s the biggest,” my dad said.
His roommate laughed. “Of course. You wanted a trophy mountain. I bet it was one heck of a self-esteem booster.”
“Absolutely.”
I was glad my dad had a good roommate and that he was housed in the skilled unit of the nursing home, a place dedicating to helping people get better so they could be released to go back home. My father was recovering from surgery and chemo, and he hoped to be released soon. Meanwhile, his cheery and encouraging roommate was there for physical therapy after a hip replacement surgery.
As happy as I was that dad was recuperating, there were days when I simply wanted to bawl my eyes out about the entire situation. It was difficult to adjust to my father’s liver cancer diagnosis, and unsettling feelings of anger and frustration brewed deeply within. Cancer changed our family forever. My mom, bless her soul, died of lung cancer, so my daddy’s diagnosis was like some cruel case of déjà vu. He was all I had left, and I didn’t want to lose him.
My father had always been the greatest, most loving, devoted, caring person I know. When I left to pursue my dreams, he was always my biggest supporter and cheerleader. He gave me the greatest gift any father could give his daughter: He always believed in me. He was the greatest husband and father the world had ever known, and he taught me the power of love and strength. He had the greatest sense of humor and could always make me laugh. Plus, he even loved the same music and movies as me, and that made him extra cool in my book.
He loved my mother with the intensity of a thousand suns and never cheated on her. I always appreciated the wonderful role he played in my life, in helping me become all I wanted to be and could be. I appreciated him so much and was glad he was in my life. No matter what storms we endured, he was a pillar of strength, always there to support his family. Even battling cancer, he remained strong, patient, and focused, letting his inner strength be a guiding light in the darkness. Even when he was suffering great pain himself, he smiled and asked me about my day.
The thought of him being in the nursing home often brought tears to my eyes, and I wished I could take the cancer away and give him back his life. Chemo had been tough, but we were sure he would beat his disease in the end. He had to, because he was my dad, and I loved him, and I sure as hell couldn’t live without him. In spite of all the disappointments and heartbreaks and losses I’d faced in life, I had to hang on to the glimmer of hope that everything would work out in the end. He had always taught me that no obstacle would be too big to overcome, no hurdle too high to jump, and I held tight to those words, willing myself to survive anything.
The nursing assistant walked into my dad’s room and set his dinner on a tray near his bed, then quickly left. She was in a rush and seemed overworked, but I’d met her before and knew that she, like most of the staff there, was very nice and loved taking care of people.
My dad glanced down at the dry, overdone chicken and stabbed it with his fork. “It’s not your mother’s cooking, that’s for sure.”
I laughed. “I miss her roast beef.”
He closed his eyes, as if remembering her. “Yeah, it was to die for.”
My mother was my angel, and even after she was gone, she always lived on in my heart. I missed her so much, and the pain of losing her, even years later, still cut deeply. I couldn’t bear to think about losing my dad too. As I looked over at him, tears welled in my eyes, and I began to get emotional. I didn’t want to lose it in front of him, his roommate, and the staff, and I knew I had to put on a brave face for him, to be his pillar of strength for a change. That was hard when I wanted to burst into a fit of tears and scream at the sky, demanding to know why he had to go through it in the first place. He certainly didn’t deserve it, and he’d already lost the love of his wife to the same dreadful disease that was now threatening to take him away from me.
Knowing it was best that I leave before I had a complete meltdown, I grabbed my purse, walked over to him, and placed a peck on his cheek. “I’m gonna let you eat, Dad. I’ve got some strict deadlines to meet.”
“Always working, aren’t ya, kiddo? And moonlighting too.” He shook his head. “You should stop taking those side jobs writing fashion articles. Why don’t you go out and have dinner with a nice fellow or something?”
“Well, for starters, so-called nice fellows are hard to come by these days.” As much as I loved my dad, I didn’t appreciate his constant reminders of my nonexistent love life and the slew of bad dates I’ve had. Who has time to date anyway? I asked myself. I was far too overworked and stressed out for that.
“Well, there’s this really nice male nurse, and he—”
“Dad, please don’t tell me you’re trying to set me up.”
“He works in the morning.”
“Dad, no.” I smiled. “Okay, I have to go.”
He grinned back at me, then poked his overdone chicken again. “You can’t possibly leave me to eat burnt rubber. If I bite into this thing, I’ll need dental surgery next.”
I let out a sigh. “I suppose I can try and whip something up for you and bring it back.”
He smirked at the notion, knowing I was no Julia Child.
“But we both know it’ll be worse than this,” I said. “Like I always say, I only have a kitchen because it came with my apartment.”
We both burst into laughter.
“My poor cat eats table scraps, and she’s only got about three more lives left,” I said.
He chuckled. “Last time, you used the smoke alarm as a cooking timer.”