I have cancer, honey!
Cancer?
Dad, are you going to be ok I asked.
I will be fine.

My dad is one of the most positive people I know, his glass is never half empty. It turned out he was diagnosed with not one but three different cancers. In front of me and my mother he was matter of fact, taking on each disease as a work project that had a deadline. Being a physician himself, I can only imagine that he must have at least thought about his mortality, vulnerability, and learned to compartmentalize his emotions. I learned later that he was an expert at stashing away negative feelings and experiences, deep, really deep. But I would also come to realize that his compartment became so full, that there was no room to coexist for both the cancers and his memories of being in a combat zone for over a year in Iraq. The emotions he chose not to remember were now percolating to the surface. I could see subtle teardrops and hear weariness in his voice that exposed a side of him I had never seen, or even imagined existed.

I felt numb when I thought about his cancers. I was angry that they had entered our life, a life of calm, happiness, wholeness. Our life became absorbed with fearful anticipation, subdued melancholy, and fragile hope. I was also jealous of my little sister, whom my father chose to protect. Protect from knowing about what he was going through and avoid explaining. After my mother brought him home after his first surgery, the easy one, where they excised most of his forearm and axillary lymph nodes. He told my sister he had fallen down and hurt his arm, and thus his enormous scar and limited ability to do much with that extremity. Being six years younger than me she believed it without even having a second thought. A month later, after having his kidney removed, he appeared less stoic and more sedated, I am not sure what had a bigger impact on him, the narcotic pain medications or having his abdomen violated. For this assault on his body, we told my younger sister that dad had a bad stomach bug, and thus he could not hug her or give her their ritual piggyback ride down the stairs from the second floor. I think it was this inability to fully embrace his kids in a hug or be physically strong for them, even if temporarily, that was beginning to break his heart. One month later, he underwent yet another surgery, this time leaving him a ventral neck scar and a circular one below it. My mother at one point said he looked like Frankenstein, but to me he looked more like someone who had been assaulted, head to toe, with scars old and those yet healed. It took a little bit more creativity to hide this one from my sister, and we decided that a box had fallen from a top shelf and injured my father’s neck. Although she began to develop some suspicion when packages and friends continued to arrive at our front door almost daily. Her favorite was the fruit basket with the chocolate covered strawberries. I have no doubt my father would have preferred his health and empty-handed friends over all the foods, gifts and cards he was getting.

One day I told my dad about a classmate that lost her father abruptly to a heart attack. He asked me if this scared me, that I may lose him or my mom. I nodded. He often used humor to decompress situations and tense moments, and his response was classic dad, as he said to me- we are not ready to die yet honey. He also said something I will never forget, that he was not scared of death itself, that he has lived a full life, surrounded by people that loved and cared about him, and most importantly he had few regrets. He said deaths comes to everyone at some point, but that point was not even close for him, as he hugged me tightly.