A Foreign Country

I like to travel. Love it, in fact. I've been lucky enough to see places in the world that I never would've dreamed of, mostly through a cruise ship gig I did a number of years ago: six months traveling to countries as "main-stream" as Spain and Italy to more off-the-beaten-track places like Uruguay and Mauritius. (My favorite in that latter category: Bom Bom Island.) 

What I think I like most about being in a new place is that it is truly, undeniably NEW. If you've ever so much as left your hometown, you'll know what I mean. You can try to prepare: you can study maps, read about the big sites, even Google Map actual pictures of actual streets — but you won't know what that place is like until you're there. Not really. Until your two feet are planted squarely on the ground will you realize that the route you'd so carefully planned is impossible because of construction or one-way streets or over-crowding. You may even do what i did and walk right by the famed Spanish Steps in Rome without even realizing it (until three blocks later, when you double back to take a picture). Somehow, they just look different in person.

My father is dying. 

He has advanced, aggressive prostate cancer that has long-since left his actual prostate and invaded his kidneys, liver and lungs. (Thankfully, it's not in his bones.) My sister Kelly and I were talking last night, and she said, "I just can't imagine him gone. I want to prepare myself, but I can't. I don't know how."

That's when I realized this is exactly like a trip to a foreign country. We're all reading books about the after life and about coping with grief. We're all doing our best to get used to the idea of being without our hero in the world. But we just can't do it. 

All we can do is try to understand the best we can, then just deal with it when it finally happens. Support and love one another as we fumble our respective ways (undoubtedly looking as hopeless as we feel) through the new terrain. 

But we will.

My therapist is fond of quoting Mark Twain who said something along the lines of (pardon the paraphrase), "It's remarkable the blows the human spirit can take and still survive."

It's a blow we'll take, and it will hurt for a long time -- probably, to some degree, forever -- but we'll find our way. And so will Dad.