Friday, June 20, 2008

May 2008

May is a Month for Family in Korea.
It's a month full of days of celebration- children's day, parent's day, teacher's day, family day, etc.- but May for our family, in the year of 2008, it was not so much about celebrating. May 8th is Parent's day in Korea there isn't any Mother's day or Father's day but rather it's in one day,on that day we found out that my dad has cancer.

A day when we could be having a good time, we were struck down with an earth-shattering news. We were hopeful, hopeful that it wasn't so bad, hopeful that it was just the kidney and anywhere else, hopeful that there are 2 kidneys in a human body. However, there were more tests to be done and more results to be heard and the bad news became the worst.. and left our family speechless...

Renal Pelvis and Ureter Cancer

who knew? and how could we have known?

Yes, I heard of cancer, I heard of people having cancer, but I never in my life thought one of the people I love and treasure would...
Maybe somehow I thought we were immune to diseases that we were disconnected to the world of sick... that we were safe.. and there could be no harm done to my family. I couldn't have been SO wrong.

The hard part is not knowing about it... but actually acknowledging it. It's really hard to believe that the man who was so healthy, taking good care of his health, and making stupid jokes is not so healthy and high spirited anymore. Another difficult part is how to be yourself in all this. How to react, to deal, and to be.

I still have to figure that out... I feel that I'm moving in slow motion.. I feel numb and like an idiot next to him. I don't know what to do or say to make him feel better. I can't ask 'how are you?' because I know how much in pain he is, well, may be not actually know.. NO, I don't think I'll really know how painful it is just to sit, or lie down, or even to breathe.. I don't know his pain but I know it's painful. I don't want to remind him of the pain or remind him he's sick by asking such stupid questions; How are you feeling today? How the hell do you think it'll feel if you're sick and dying? I want him to be happy. I want him to be able to forget the pain he's in and be happy. But I don't know how to do that... I really don't and because of that I feel so useless..

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