The author and her father at a wedding in summer 2014, three months after he was diagnosed with colon cancer."This is one of the last photos taken of just the two of us together," she writes.It was Easter, and in between doing a million things, she added too much butter. When she first pulled the pan from the oven, a thick layer of oil wriggled at the top.
But when we went inside and I saw Dad for the first time, I gave myself no choice but to temper the anxious fluttering in my chest. For the next year, I took solace in the shadowed corners of hospital hallways when he’d return there, symptoms flaring, but would go back to his room with a smile on my face. At home, I’d retreat to the bathroom to soothe the red gathering in my eyes or release my rage by throwing things in the basement.
I felt the anger swell in my throat ― attempting to manifest itself in words between the tears I’d long held back ― when I finally asked the question we often do when faced with the bleakest of circumstances: Why? Why him?Three little words leveled the room and then hung there definitively, filling the space between us like a fog. Even in the thick of his suffering, he could so clearly see and accept what most people never do.
In these last seven years, I’ve watched colon cancer gather strength. I’ve seen more headlines about how it’s upended more lives. I’ve read more disheartening facts about how more people are battling it or losing their lives to it. March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, and I can’t help but look back on those three words and how they offer invaluable wisdom ― and a way to put Dad’s perspective into practice., colorectal cancer is the third-leading cause of cancer deaths.
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