My Father

I am going to see Papá this weekend; leaving from Miami after work on Friday evening, an 8:30 PM flight, and coming back on Sunday evening. It is a very short trip (expensive one too - $1,000 bucks for the ticket), but it is the best I can do right now given the fact that I just started a new job in July and have no vacations yet...

Some time ago, about three month, my father self-diagnosed with terminal cancer; now, I learned recently (last week) from Ligia - my sister, he does have cancer and has had it for a while; he has had bone cancer for over 3 years, but the oncologist has always said that there is nothing to do and nothing to worry about. So, about three month ago he fell and injured a leg he had broken some 10 years ago. Since the pain did not go away in a couple of days (he's almost 87 years old and it takes longer to recover at that age) he decided the bone cancer had gone critical and, therefore, he was cooked, done, ready to check-out.

I, and probably many others, told him that it was true, he was dying, but then again we all were, and that the only difference is that some people had more time left that others. Apparently he saw the reason and simplicity of that kind of thinking and decided to live again. Two days later, coming back to their apartment, he fell on the stairs and broke one of his pinky fingers. That seems to have triggered the thoughts of not being any good for anything anymore except to embarrass himself and others. And this has changed his mental profile to the point of losing completely his appetite and, in a broader sense, his will to live. 

As he grew weaker, Ligia took him to the doctor's who in turn had him put in the hospital to rehydrate, re-nourish and transfuse blood into him since he had grown anemic. He ate and drank at the hospital and, after one week of progress and having verified he was physically able to eat, drink and dispose of waste, they sent him home last week-end.

Once home, apparently he has reverted back to his old ways of not wanting to eat at all. The object of my going there is not to recriminate him or call him to order or to make him eat; he's heard all that already. Instead, I am only going to see him (maybe for the last time?), to listen to him and see if I can instill on him a glimmer of hope that there is a future for all of us, regardless how short it may be...