Winded

My dad was diagnosed with 1st stage renal cancer yesterday. In about 2 weeks' time, he would go from having a pair of kidneys to just having one.

"It suddenly dawned on me, that the time when there is no more fixing to be done, is drawing up really fast," I told Mandy. There is something to be said about saying something out loud - it brings it into shape, it brings it into the present. It makes it real.

At the countless funerals I have been to in the past 3 years, mortality has never struck me as an issue. I have my loose ends tied up and my 'i's dotted, 't's crossed. If my time comes prematurely, I know my children and family would be well taken care of. But I realise that I have been looking at it from a purely financial and material perspective. Sure - both kids would be millionaires then but they would be losing their one and only parent.

When Grandma passed on, my colleague told me that "losing a grandparent is unsettling." She neglected to say that losing a parent would be life-changing. Even the mere thought of it is already sending ripples and waves the size of tsunamis across this small ocean called my brain.

I have come to realise that no matter what age we are, we will never be ready to lose a parent.  It changes you in ways that you never thought possible. As it is now, having spoken to various persons most knowledgeable in this field, I am already filled with remorse. Yes, everyone tells me that I cannot put the blame of this illness at my own door.Yet, if you knew me as in really knew me - you would know that my own door is my first port of calling in the analysis of "How did this happen?!"

And so I will fight - with every ounce of my physical being, with every dime that I have tied to my name. Because I did not fight harder when I should have. As another colleague says: We're in curative stage - so no expenses will be spared, even if I have to up-root everyone to the one place where my faith in medicine and medical miracles is strongest.

My only hope is that, when the time comes - hopefully decades from now - I will not let it go with any regrets of not having done more.