My Testimony: Dad Issues, Part 1

I was thinking you'd like to learn a little about me. So let me share some about myself.

I was born in Richmond, Virginia, the second of four kids. I was the classic "middle child"; always in the middle, not really getting the attention I thought I should get... Anyway, I have gotten over it! Haha!

During my teenage years I became angry and rebelled in my own way (of course), although I stayed largely out of trouble. I barely passed with a D- average my senior year of high school, though. My teachers always said I had much more
ability and potential. I think I just didn't care.

Shortly after graduation, I was working on some dead-end job, sleeping in, doing my own thing when my dad came down with this sudden cancer. We were
not that close. My parents had separated years before and he kind of slipped out
of our lives. In fact, he had moved over a thousand miles away.

I had not seen him in a couple of years and did not really miss him. At the time
I did not really respect him. Some of his decisions and lifestyle were not really
meshing with who I was.

My dad and I did not really get along. Years before, I stopped going to visit him
on weekends when he lived nearby. I got into band at school and things like that. He came to a couple of school events, but didn't show as much interest in my life as I would have wanted. It was all the same, because he probably would have seen that I was a loner. I did not
make many friends, and the few I had I wasn't very close to. I guess that deep-down I was glad he did not get more involved. He would
have seen through my facade and teenager angst. Why was I like this? Well I was... Angry. I did not know why at the time.

So, my father gets this cancer, which was strange enough. He was young, about 40-something, and a health-food nut. He was very overweight, though.

He gets flu-like symptoms and goes to the doctor after it doesn't go away for a month. The doctor runs some tests and there you go. He
has a strange abdominal cancer with tumors all over the place. No cure is possible. No way to treat it. He is given a month to live, just like that. He never calls to tell us.

I get a phone call from his doctor one day. He says that dad has slipped into a semi-coma. He and a family friend (who is there) tell me and the family what is going on. The doctor says he is not going to make it, we should come see him.

So I go down to see him (I was his oldest, my mother had a son from a previous relationship) by taking a train to Denver, Colorado... all the way from Virginia. It was decided that I would be there if he died and any funeral arrangements. I did not want this responsibility, and
did not want to go, but I realized this was the least I could do for him. It forced me to deal with some things that I did not want to deal with.