saying "my dad has brain cancer" today doesn't mean the same thing that saying "my dad has brain cancer" meant 23 months ago. 23 months ago it was an assault. it was a blinding, searing pain. people only talk about good miracles but there are terrible miracles, too--it was a miracle that my dad had brain cancer, just like that. it was a big blue sky, positive energy kind of day when i texted my youngest brother pretty much for no reason and he told me dad was in the hospital with a terrible headache and then one week later i was there at the hospital waiting to see if he would survive surgery.

i heard my mom say recently to someone: "the man i love is gone." that's the only thing that can really explain how it's not the same. dad is still here. healthy even, considering. i didn't realize, before my mom made that comment (not in any kind of derision, at all--simply stating a fact), what it must be like to give that intimate, unrelenting, tireless care to someone who was and is, some days, almost a stranger. i feel it on a much lesser level than she does. it's a strange way of life with a strange version of the person you married. the person who's your son or your friend. the person who's your dad.

she only said it once, and then all but dismissed it. i'm sure she won't ever stop caring for him. none of us will.

i drive past that hospital every time i visit my family, and i look up at it every time, often in the dark. i look to the floor and even to the rooms near where we spent those days. on road trips when it got dark my parents would always ask us if we could see the temples when we passed them, shining into the night. that hospital, standing there unassuming in the night, is a temple to me.

he was supposed to have a check up scan at christmas, to see how it was looking, but he decided that he didn't want any more scans until he was showing symptoms again, which was a surprise to everyone when they were going often for every bump in the road at first. it's a noble decision. once the tumor returns, which it will, they won't be able to treat it at all, it will only be pain management. so officially we've begun the long descent to the end of this scathing journey that none of us would miss for the world.