A little less than 2 months ago I had a very strange dream. I knew that the next day I was supposed to find out if the second in a series of 4 tests my Dad would go through would be positive for Lung Cancer. We were hopeful it would just be some bug they could knock out with antibiotics, not that dreaded C word again. My Dad was a 20+ year bladder cancer Survivor. He showed extraordinary strength beating it so long ago. Little did we know that the tough chemo drugs he was on 20 years ago that helped saved his life also damaged his heart. It weakened his body but not his spirit and we have always felt so lucky to have him all of these years.
My dream was incredibly vivid, in full color and very strange. All of my back teeth were falling out. It wasn't painful, I wasn't even really disturbed by what was happening to me in my dream. I remember being a little upset but only because I would have to go through some major dental work to get them fixed. I could just touch them and they would fall out and I would have a mouthful of teeth. I remembered it so well the next day and was so perplexed by it I had to look it up on one of those silly dream interpretation websites. It wasn't hard to find and it wasn't something I wanted to hear. I read one...then another and another...they all said basically the same thing: Someone would die, brace yourself for something bad to happen. So I did. I will probably be amazed by this dream thing for the rest of my life.
It would take another week, and 2 more tests but the
Dx would finally come: Stage 4 Lung Cancer. They did a couple of rounds of a newer, gentler chemo which seemed promising to gain us some time and help relieve his coughing. I got to go out to see him for four days and all of my siblings were there. He was clearly in a lot of pain, very weak, and had so much trouble just catching his breath to talk, but it was all so normal and nice. We spent some time talking and just "being" together. Julie gave me the greatest advice ever...to just be in the moment with him...I am so glad that I did. The night before I flew home we all sat down to dinner together. Mom, Dad my sister Karen and myself. No kids, no spouses, just us. Just like we had so many hundreds of times before growing up. It seems kind of surreal now but it is something I will hold on to forever. When I finally got home at midnight that next day I called Mom to check in and Dad was in the ICU.
The chemo had started to shrink the tumors but his poor old heart just couldn't take it. It finally gave out on May 4
th, a totally mixed blessing that he wouldn't have to suffer the
inevitable suffocation and pain from the lung cancer but so hard for us to lose him so quickly.
I flew back out the next day to be with my Mom and my sisters. We had a beautiful little get together in his memory called a "paddle out." No funeral for this man, he would never like that. All of his 5 kids and 12
grand kids were there to say goodbye in our own way. His 2 oldest grandsons paddled a beautiful wreath out to the reef on their surfboards and we all sent messages to him tied to balloons. It was beautiful and comforting but I will miss him dearly and I am so sad that my kids had so little time with him. I'm still not sure I am believing it all, it happened so quickly. But hopefully that's just because I don't feel he is totally gone, his presence is still stong, he's still my Dad, and he will always be with me.
? But my Mom made them for the kids on the last morning of our trip and ds decided they were called army eggs. So we thought we would share.
