My father has been sick for a year now. He was always in perfect health, ate well, went to the gym everyday and was in great shape. It has been a tough road with many close calls and to this day we still don’t have a true diagnosis or plan. We take it day by day, week by week, month by month, hoping things will continue to go in the right direction but always fearing we will go back to square one.
Something happens to people when their life gets turned upside down in the blink of an eye. The older I get the more I see it. Like the morning I got the call from one of my best friends that her brother suddenly passed away in a car accident. I will always remember that day, the days, the weeks, the months after, knowing that she would never be the same. Knowing that she will always have bad days, days of missing him, missing her life the way it used to be before her life was forever changed. Slowly I see the old friend seep back in when she smiles or laughs but I know there is always a sadness in her soul that will never go away.
I am not comparing the two situations by any means, what I am comparing is how much your life changes when it becomes all too real, that in a blink of an eye your whole life can get turned upside down. How you no longer can make small talk with people because you are always on the verge of crying or how you just can’t begin to care about things that used to be so important to you because nothing is really that important anymore.
This week I took my dad into the city to see his doctor. We were sitting in the waiting room, anxious as always about what news good or bad we would get that day. My dad started talking (or lecturing whichever way you want to look at it) about how my generation doesn’t save enough money. How all he and my mother ever did was save every penny they ever made. He then went on to talk about my grandfather and great grandfather, who both immigrated from Italy and were barbers, how they never took a single vacation their whole life. They got up every day and went to work. I know my grandparents saved every penny they ever made because I was astonished to see how they owned their house outright and had a decent amount of money in the bank. Do you know how many haircuts he must have done? I was sitting there with my father thinking about this in my head, how my grandfather went off to war, fought against the Nazis, came home, started a family, went straight to work everyday of his life, never went on one vacation and then he died. I said it out loud as I was sitting there. I turned to my dad and said, “he worked every day of his life and then he died”. My father looked back at me and agreed. Then we sat in silence the rest of the time.
Our visit with the doctor was a positive one. For the time being, my dad is headed in the right direction and that’s all we can ask for right now. On the way home, we drove in silence for awhile, relieved that our visit went well. Then my dad turned to me and said, “when I get better, I want to take you, your brother and your family’s to the Grand Canyon. I have never been there and I have always wanted to go”. I told him we would love to.
If you get a second chance in life, take the vacation, make the memories, have the experiences and enjoy your life because nobody ever lays on their deathbed and wishes they worked harder.
