Sunday, July 15, 2007
8:50 PM
my dad has a tumor on his brain the size of a marble.
my dad is 66 years old. he is 17 years older than my mom. when i was little, i thought everybody died at the age of 60. i used to cry just thinking about it. i can remember one time i cried about it on our way to kearney to go shopping. i just cried. right there in the car, covered in a pink blanket. i don't know how old i was, or why i started thinking about death, but i did. and i cried. and now i am 20 years old. crying. at the reality that my dad might die. i've never been on this side of tragedy before. not like this at least. i've become the person that has to leave the room when talking about it because i can't keep my composure. i'm the one getting the 'your father is dying, you poor thing' looks. the hardest part was hearing him, my dad, my papi, telling us that he's lived a long life and that joe and i have been very special to him and that if anything happens he just wants to know that we are okay and that we take care of mom. i'd never seen my dad cry before. today we cried together. on his hospital bed. it broke my heart. no one even really told me anything about what was wrong. i mean, i thought it was his heart for crying out loud. to walk into that hospital room and sit down and to be told that they've found a brain tumor is a big shock. i sobbed. i hung my head and sobbed. the room was quiet. my brother comforted me but nothing helped. nothing will ever help. i'll never feel better about this. my dad is my hero. he's my favorite person in the whole world. i'm so much like him. i can't believe it. i guess i don't have a choice.