I scribbled out a little essay-type-thing while I was waiting in the airport in Charlottesville. It’s not elegantly written, but I can’t bring myself to revise it. It’s just first-draft raw writing, and that feels somehow right.
I am in a tiny airport on the East Coast of the United States, and I am reminded of my father. The man to my right, whom I can only see from the back, is graying and dressed like a veteran businessman on a casual day — in other words, not very casually. He is regaling the man to his right with stories of engineering errors — miscalculations in the design of aircraft — not the sort of chit-chat most travellers would find entertaining before boarding a plane. But this man clearly enjoys the absurdity and darkness of telling these stories in this circumstance.
And that reminds me of my father.
“Sadistic,” my mother always shakes her head and says. “Your father has a sadistic sense of humor.” And it’s true, he laughs at movie pratfalls, situation comedies that pit a hapless character against insurmountable odds — and then make him suffer every imaginable cruelty before allowing him, inevitably, to triumph in the end. My dad loves this style of humor.
But I think part of what he loves is the security of knowing that the good guy -will- triumph in the end, against all odds. He can guiltlessly enjoy laughing at the misery in between.
So it shouldn’t have been surprising that during these dark hours of my dad’s battle against cancer, he is still able to laugh and joke about his hallucinations, about his kidney failure, about all the details of his suffering. Nor should it have been surprising that, until recently, he expected to triumph in the end, against all odds.
It broke my heart the first time I heard him acknowledge that there was no guaranteed victory here. “I don’t think this is going to be a short-term thing,” he said miserably.
How do you watch someone make that transition without losing your will to laugh? How can anything be lighthearted anymore when death is leaning on the doorway, coolly having a smoke before coming in to claim his due?
You find a way. You find a way because life is short, death is certain, and in between, humor keeps us sane.
Here in this tiny airport, the businessman to my right has just made a joke about the plane we’re about to board. It’s dark humor, to be sure. But you have to laugh. Don’t you?
It’s a good essay. I suspect you’d lose some of the clarity of that brainspace if you revised it.
My best to your dad. I’m so, so sorry that he, you, and your family are going through this but it’s good to know that he’s dealing as he can.
It’s wonderful, Kate. The imagery it evokes is astounding (I don’t generally get mental images when I read, unless I focus, and I didn’t have to focus at all).
*hugs* for what you’re all going through.
I love your user icon for this post!
I think you captured a razor fine edge of conflicting/competing emotions perfectly. It’s raw, yes, but so is life eh?
Your father sounds like an amazing man. Love and Light to your entire family, with extra to your dad.
jb
Don’t change a word.
Thank you for this, Kate.
Thank you. I appreciate your remarks about the essay as well as your sympathy.
Thanks. I’m glad it’s evocative. I had an overwhelming impulse to write it exactly as it came out, so maybe there’s something to that.
You know that you have my greatest sympathy for you and your whole family. I know very well how hard this is. *hugs* if you want ’em.
I’m very glad to find you back on LJ.
I love your user icon for this post!
Thanks! I dug around in my images folder last night to try to find one of my and my dad where our heads were close enough to crop that small and still be reasonably clear. I figured I’ll probably be doing a fair amount of writing about my dad, so I should probably have the user icon for it.
And thanks for your other comments, too. My dad is an amazing man. I hope I can write some more about him and try to capture what it is that’s so rare in him.
Thanks, hon. I appreciate your feedback.
Thank you, L. That sympathy means a lot coming from you — I think I have some idea of all you’ve been through. I appreciate those hugs. 🙂
thanks for sharing this with us, kate.
it doesn’t feel raw, it feels, well, heart-felt.