My experience

My father died when I was fourteen. It was after a long, horrific battle with brain cancer that left him blind and unable to control his speech and motor functions. Essentially, he went from being a fully functional human being to completely handicapped inside of a year. When he died, my mother was helping him get dressed to go visit the doctor because he was breathing funny. He technically died of a pulmonary embolism, which in this case was a blood clot near the lungs. It apparently was because he became so sedentary. The doctors explained this to my mother in ‘yes, this happens to people in this situation’ kind of way, as though it was common knowledge. Basically, had we gotten him up for walks daily he might have lived longer and perhaps even survived the treatment, although regaining sight and motor skills was another uphill battle.

The strange thing about it was that when he died, there was a certain amount of relief that seemed to wash over me, my younger brother, and my mother. I can remember my mother and grandmother getting in an argument during the funeral service because we weren’t crying. We were all kind of over it by that point. Really, we did all the crying when we realized he was dead.

But the relief was the strangest part of it all. It was a little like we knew he wasn’t going to ever be back to the person he was before he was diagnosed, and that perhaps dying was the best end. It was a circumstance that has caused me to frequently question if dying really is the worst thing in this world, even at a young age. This is not to suggest that life is so awful that I am thinking suicidally. In fact, I love my life right now. But when that inevitable moment comes, will I be thinking “oh no, this is the worst thing ever”, or will there be some kind of understanding that this is a chapter in some recursive metanarrative?