My morning was an interesting one. My father requested that I visit with him this morning as he had some items that he wanted to talk about. I assumed that such discussion would be in regards to plans that he had for projects that he wanted my help for. I was incredibly wrong.
My father wanted to talk about his new condition and the genetic increased liklihood that I would also have to deal with this condition someday. As with everything else that has been happening to my family in the last five years. Here he is -- my father -- a man I had seen in tears only once before in my life when he scratched over the name of his cousin and very close friend on the Viet Nam Memorial and he is now crying before me. It is difficult for me to see this happen, but I think I did well in reassuring my father. It is my hope that I didn't seem freaked out by his crying.
It is difficult for me to see my father brought to tears for fear of what I might have to go through in my life. I have been very careful to keep my smoking and drinking out of view from my parents. Foremost because I didnt' want to to deal with the increased levels of nagging. The levels that I currently deal with are often more than I can bare. Secondly, because I don't want them to worry, which is where I know their nagging will come from. So, here my father is wishing that I'll have a better and longer life than he ... and there I am, listening to what he has to say, thinking about all the smoking and drinking that I do that my father has never engaged in. I feel guilty that my father is so worried about his life right now, and then the lives of those close to him. There I am, his fatalistic son that has done everything within his powers to hasten his demise short of pulling the trigger. I do all of this despite the concerns that my family history should provide. Cancer, alcoholism, my liver was deficient to begin with, and I give it a good workout more often than my father would like to know.
It was a very strange morning. It was a very difficult morning. I feel that I am lying to my father, which troubles me given the severity of his situation. I've lied in the past without thinking twice, but here I feel some measure of guilt. Ultimately though, I don't think that my father would have the heart to understand my world view. My concept of life. He, the man that has told me for two and a half decades of his fear of death, which would lead to his encouragement for me to seize each and every day and to live life as fully as I could. How do I explain that at 25 I appreciate my mortality, and that very mortality in some dark manner has encouraged me to engage in self destructive behaviors? Perhaps I am the shadow that my has cast? The love of darkness that balances his love of the light? Perhaps I'm overromantacizing my existence?
My father wanted to talk about his new condition and the genetic increased liklihood that I would also have to deal with this condition someday. As with everything else that has been happening to my family in the last five years. Here he is -- my father -- a man I had seen in tears only once before in my life when he scratched over the name of his cousin and very close friend on the Viet Nam Memorial and he is now crying before me. It is difficult for me to see this happen, but I think I did well in reassuring my father. It is my hope that I didn't seem freaked out by his crying.
It is difficult for me to see my father brought to tears for fear of what I might have to go through in my life. I have been very careful to keep my smoking and drinking out of view from my parents. Foremost because I didnt' want to to deal with the increased levels of nagging. The levels that I currently deal with are often more than I can bare. Secondly, because I don't want them to worry, which is where I know their nagging will come from. So, here my father is wishing that I'll have a better and longer life than he ... and there I am, listening to what he has to say, thinking about all the smoking and drinking that I do that my father has never engaged in. I feel guilty that my father is so worried about his life right now, and then the lives of those close to him. There I am, his fatalistic son that has done everything within his powers to hasten his demise short of pulling the trigger. I do all of this despite the concerns that my family history should provide. Cancer, alcoholism, my liver was deficient to begin with, and I give it a good workout more often than my father would like to know.
It was a very strange morning. It was a very difficult morning. I feel that I am lying to my father, which troubles me given the severity of his situation. I've lied in the past without thinking twice, but here I feel some measure of guilt. Ultimately though, I don't think that my father would have the heart to understand my world view. My concept of life. He, the man that has told me for two and a half decades of his fear of death, which would lead to his encouragement for me to seize each and every day and to live life as fully as I could. How do I explain that at 25 I appreciate my mortality, and that very mortality in some dark manner has encouraged me to engage in self destructive behaviors? Perhaps I am the shadow that my has cast? The love of darkness that balances his love of the light? Perhaps I'm overromantacizing my existence?