The C word...

It is amazing how quickly life can lurch from the trivial obsessions that cloud my judgement to the important, and what seemed so urgent only days ago now seems trite.

This morning, when I woke up, the worst news I could imagine came through. I knew my dad hadn't been feeling way, but it seemed something weird--I hadn't taken it seriously. And then they woke me up (they're 3 hours ahead of me) and delivered the c-word.

Cancer.

I wasn't even awake--it came through the sort of half awake, not sure what's going on, no clarity.
How can all that be contained in those 6 little letters. And perhaps worse to come--we'll know tomorrow. I always thought cancer was the worst news you could get. If it is metastasized....

And I'm the strong one. My mother is trying to be strong for me dad when she's with him, and then I'm there for her whenever my dad needs a break. And they're all the way across the country.

My dad cried on the phone with me. The only other time I remember my dad crying is when John Lennon was killed. My grandma died a year ago--how can my dad be facing this now?

And for me--I want to drop everything and run over and be with them.

And yet, my mind runs back to the trivial--I have this incredible guilt that I haven't given him a grandchild. I always thought my brother would because he was open about wanting a family, and he's incredibly good looking, but he breaks up with women when they become less perfect. He seems to be beginning to identify the pattern and maybe address it, but so far, my father has no possibilities of having a grand added to his name. It seems the least I could do, especially since I think I want to anyway. And if I do it in 10 years and he is gone--he wanted a grandchild so much--WANTS--I can't believe I just used past-tense--anyway he wants a grandchild more than just about anything. But really, there was no one I could have done that with. But if only I had been softer, thinner, less opinionated, more feminine, all the things my dad wanted me to be... Now he'd say I'm just fine the way I am, he wouldn't change me at all. But if I could only have been the things he thought, I expect he'd have grandkids by now. Not that I can live my life that way, not that I should even think that, but all the same.

I've been wearing make-up every single day since John disappeared. At first it was because it kept me from bursting into tears in public. Somehow the feel of the make-up on my face, which I've always hated, reminded me, distanced me, it actually became a mask that also seemed to protect me. Once I stopped wanting to burst into tears, I've kept it up, figuring if I want men to approach me, maybe I should give visual cues that I want men to approach me. Maybe all the stuff women do, that I've always thought of as trite and superficial, and annoying and stupid--maybe they are the human species cues that the individual member of the species is interested in mating. Today, my mascara ran down my face. And that was OK. Someone was very kind to me at work, asked what was wrong. And while I always eschew any public displays of emotion, I send something along the lines of "sorry--my dad has cancer, and I found out a couple of hours ago, but it just hit me" and the visual cue of the running mascara, as silly as it seemed, she was far kinder to me than I think she would have been otherwise, or maybe I was more vulnerable. I don't know.

I want to be able to do something, to help in some way other than having some flowers and a couple of books sent to him (first time I've ever used amazon's overnight shipping!)--something. I feel so helpless and so alone. I clutch my cats closer to me in bed tonight--they, of course, have claws. I wish I could do something other than wait and hope that I don't hear the m-word tomorrow.