“Do you have pain anywhere, Mr. Royal,” nurse Walter inquired.
“I have a headache,” my dad replied.
“What is the pain like?”
“Feels like a fullness. Trying to hold too much.”
I sat in the next room listening as Walter attached a new needle to Daddy’s port. I was waiting for him to finish so I could administer his drips—or dribbles, as daddy likes to call them. When I heard his response, I asked Walter, “Did he say, ‘trying to hold too much’?” “That’s what he said,” answered Walter.
Man…profound. I sat there thinking about Daddy’s words. I wondered if he realized what he had said or what it might mean. He has had headaches for as long as I can remember, for as long as I’ve been alive. Has he been holding too much all this time? What is it he is holding? Of course, cancer is too much and chemo is too much—but what else? I know he didn’t have it easy growing up. Is that what he is holding? Is that the cause of his incurable headaches?
Walter finished up and invited me in to hook up daddy to the drip. He checked over my work to see if I got it right. He’s teaching how it’s done so we can do it ourselves and he will no longer need to be here. I passed inspection and he left me to finish the process. It takes about three hours for the dribbles to empty at which time I unhook Daddy and shoot him up with saline and heparin. The dribbles help him feel a little better between chemo treatments.
During the dribbles, I remembered a quote by Oscar Wilde: “Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.” It is true, I began by loving my father, and when I was old enough, I started to judge him. I judged him for years, and harshly. I did not understand the emotional distance. I wanted something different from him—something he couldn’t give. I suspect he couldn’t give the emotional closeness I wanted because of all he was trying to hold—all that fullness in his head that is too much. At some point, in the last year or two, I let go of my judgment and I forgave him. Since then, I have been able to receive what he is able to give me, and it is good—it is enough.
The gift of the cancer is that it is giving us a concentrated time together that I doubt we would have otherwise. It is a time to live into the fullness of the forgiveness and to give and receive the gifts we have available for one another. I have deep gratitude for this time and that I can begin and end by loving my father.
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