The Dead Line
Everybody has a deadline to meet of some sort. It could be as simple as getting a contest entry in on time or as complex as shepherding a group of people towards a common goal at work. Recently, someone I love very much gave me a deadline, the literal kind, and I will move Heaven, Earth and Perdition to meet it.
My 83-year old father found out recently he has stage 3 lung cancer. There is a large mass in his left lung that collapsed part of the lung, he has started radiation treatments to try and shrink the mass so the lung can re-inflate. At his age and with all his other health problems, surgery and chemotherapy are too invasive. So we are doing what we can do.
It all happened really fast too. They found the mass and the biopsy was just three weeks ago. His lung collapsed before we got the biopsy results, he was hospitalized for several days and then we went right into radiation treatments.
The man that I call Dad is actually my stepfather. He married my mom right after I left high school and I’m pretty much the only one of my mother’s children that views him as a father. I’m the youngest and I lived with them for several years after they got married, so it’s not like my siblings just refused to acknowledge him or anything. But Andy and I got each other right off the bat. We share a similar life view in that life is dark and often humorless so it’s up to us to bring the light and the mirth. Neither of us is afraid to get up in anybody’s grill and we both prefer to yell first and ask questions later. It makes for a tempestuous relationship to be sure.
Andy has supported all of my ventures enthusiastically. He’s always loved to eat and was totally on board with both culinary school and buying the Cafe 455. My dad was a familiar sight at the cafe, he came in once a week for lunch and held court at his favorite table. The ladies in our building just loved him, he’s an incorrigible flirt, and he rarely sat alone at his table. Usually, there was a string of people stopping to chat with him and letting him boast about my skills.
After the cafe was wrenched from my arms, he was the one I turned to for advice. I know for a fact that it was much harder for him to see me in such pain than for me to actually experience it, it’s a familiar thing for parents. Every high and low that I’ve had since Andy came into my life, I went through with him. He is my champion, my harshest critic and most loyal supporter.
And now, he is dying.
I can’t think about that though. The idea of not having him anymore is something I can’t come to grips with yet. Right now, I keep myself busy taking care of him. We drive to a nearby city everyday for radiation treatments, I take care of all his phone calls, cook his meals and watch reruns of CSI with him. And we talk, about everything, about life and death and all the stuff in between. He’s a man who can easily see the end of his life, it’s a rare perspective and it serves to give important things a new sense of urgency.
Almost two years ago, I decided to write a story. It was completely different than any other thing I’ve done with my life and many people in my orbit were either patronizing or completely indifferent about my endeavor. Not Andy, as usual, he had absolute faith that I could do whatever I set out to do. He never once said it was a foolish notion or that I should be concentrating my energies on something more common. Instead, he told me to keep going, to keep pushing ahead and not get steered off course.
The Last Prospector is done, it’s awaiting publication. Since it’s going to be self-pubbed, Prospector is waiting for me. In July of this year, my husband decided he didn’t want to be alive anymore and my world exploded. Since then, nothing has been right for me. My husband has gotten help, but the repercussions of his actions have hurt me terribly. Finding out that my beloved Blue dog has terminal cancer was another huge blow, and now my Dad is dying. Nobody blames me for not moving more quickly on publication, not even I blame me and that’s saying something.
But this isn’t about blame, this is about something much bigger, much more important. Andy is worried about my future after he dies, he wants to know that I will be okay. He’s read The Last Prospector, he knows it’s a good story and he wants the world to know too. My dad wants Prospector out before he dies, he wants to know that I am following my dreams before his dream ends and I won’t deny him that.
Andy has set me a deadline, a literal one. I need to make this happen before he dies, it is the VERY LEAST thing I can do for him. There is very little else that matters right now, when I’m not taking care of him, I will be getting the manuscript published. So now it is a full on, balls to the wall, sprint to the finish line. This bus is pulling out of the station, so get on it or go under it, but either way, this bus is going the distance.
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