[Jul 2013] What Am I Grieving for?

I had a horrible day. Another one. It is evening, and I am sitting on the bank of the river next to my favorite little promenade where I used to run. It is getting cold, I have put on my pullover. Tepid breeze is stroking my bare legs and my face. The river is flowing silently in front of me, almost without waves, but with a strong current. The sun has already set, but it isn’t dark yet. On the other side of the river, I can see an unknown, secret little world, with trees on the shore, behind them big factory buildings with lights. I see an anchored track-boat on the river, with flickering light from their cabin. I wonder how it would be to live on a boat like this, spending the nights alone on the river, on no-man’s land, entirely abandoned, near unknown shores, reading books by a candle. To me, it is tempting now. I desire for that loneliness, for that peace.

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[May 2013] The Options We Have

In the last year or so, during my father’s cancer, I didn’t really have any options. I had to be close to my family, there was no question about it in me. I had to fight along them, together, day after day, hoping for the miracle to happen, and then accepting the inevitable.

Was I unsatisfied with my job? Of course I was, but I wasn’t even thinking about this, I didn’t have the energy or time to deal with such questions. I needed the money, and I definitely didn’t have the energy to change anything. Was I unsatisfied with my love relationship? Yes I was, but I wasn’t thinking about this, I might have not even known I was unhappy with it. I knew that this was not the time for dealing with these kinds of matters. I had to be frugal with the finite amount of energy I had. I wanted to focus it to my family. Everything else was only working at a minimum level. I had no other choice if I wanted to preserve my health and sanity.

Since my father died, and things have gotten settled slowly, I started feeling that I am gradually climbing out of the deep pit I was in. And with that emerged the feeling that I am unhappy in my work and in my relationship as well. And along came the realization, that this time I have options again, and these options are limitless. Nothing is obligatory now, for nobody am I responsible, I am my own boss now. My well-being and happiness is in my own hands. I do whatever I want with my life. Every choice is on me, more than ever before. It is my choice what I do about my unsatisfactory job and my unhappy relationship. This gives me big challenges, but on the other hand huge opportunities!

[May 2013] Father Is Sick Again

I had a dream last night. My father was sick again, and we knew he was going to die. And it wasn’t the way as if I had gone back in time to his sickness, it was like he had been sick before, had died before, and then he became alive and sick again. So we had to go through the whole process once more.

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[Mar 2013] The Death of my Father

It is Friday evening. It was exactly 13 months ago, when we started our fight with cancer, and now I am sitting at your death-bed in the Oncology Institution, and I am watching your last breaths. Your last roommate could go home today, so there is only you and me in this two-bed room.

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[Mar 2013] My Father’s Last Days

Tuesday

I knew this was the beginning of the last days. I knew it for sure. I was still lying in my bed in my apartment, when my brother called me happily, that father was let home from the hospital. I couldn’t believe what I just heard.

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[Mar 2013] Intact Soul in a Rotting Body

It is Sunday evening, and I am back in the city. I am at the hospital with my father. In the familiar, intimate atmosphere. The city outside is far away, nearly sleeping. Everybody has done everything for today. Even the hospital has quieted down. In most rooms the night has already arrived. Even the resident nurse has returned to her room. Nobody and nothing disturbs us. Time has slowed down, nearly stopped. Nothing matters to my father outside this room anymore. He has nothing left to do in life. This feeling has caught me as well. I have to go to work tomorrow, but I don’t really care. Now it seems so far away, that it may never come.

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[Mar 2013] Death Sentence

Last evening I felt quite good, but I couldn’t fall asleep until very late, so I knew waking up this morning will be difficult. And it was, especially because I knew today was going be a very hard day. I started at the hospital in the city, meeting with my father’s oncologist, in order to talk about the results of the latest CT-scan and the things to come. Meanwhile my father had to go to the nearest hospital from their home with my mother, because he had water in his lungs, that had to be drawn out. I decided to turn off every communication tools, until I can talk to his oncologiest. Then I wanted to go home to them and tell them about the certainly bad news.

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[Mar 2013] Fighting Hard

God can see my soul, I am fighting so hard day in and day out, to keep myself together, to live a healthy life, in the middle of elemental storms attacking from all directions.

I’ve read a book of a psychiatrist, who had a patient, a young woman. She was always complaining whining, although she had everything to be happy, to live a successful life. But instead, she was always blaming others for her misery and failures, and never did the things she sould have done. He asked her if she had ever seen a disabled child trying to draw. The woman didn’t understand the question. He explained it to her: the child grabs the pencil so strong that it almost breaks in half, his little eyes google, they want to fall off their places, his vein wants to blow up in his neck, his tongue lolls out of his mouth. He hasn’t got much from God, but he uses every little drop of what he has, in order to create something on that paper. He is fighting with all his parts. And what does the woman do? She got everything, but all she does is crying that nothing works for her. If one day this little child meets God, I can see, that he is told: “Good job, little boy, you really did everything you could.”

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[Febr 2013] One Year of Cancer

It’s been a year now that we are fighting persistently with my father’s disease, that is increasingly difficult for the whole family. And the worst of it all is that no matter how hard it is, no matter how we are all running out of strength and energy, we all know that it is always getting even worse. The worst is yet to come: the results of the latest CT, losing all our hope terminally and irreversibly, telling my father that he is going to die in weeks or months, waiting for death to come, and finally his death and his funeral, and everything that goes with it. So I think I can surely state, that the worst is yet to come.

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[Febr 2013] A Horrible Saturday

It is Saturday afternoon, I am home at my parents, we are just after lunch, and we are setting out with my mother for the neighbour city to settle the phone-subscription of the family. I am already tense and nervous enough, even the crowd is frustrating to me at the plaza. Getting closer to the store, I am getting steamed up, but I restrain myself, and tell the slightly complicated story about what we want to arrange here. I also show the authorization paper, that we wrote so that my poor sick and weak father can stay at home. The girl interrupts me immediately, claiming that they only accept authorizations signed by a public notary. We didn’t have that of course, because getting that is far more complicated and troublesome than coming here with my father. This was the point where something broke in me. I turned back to ask if I can sign the papers in the name of my father, but they refused it, because it is too risky for them to let that happen. My mind went blank, I knew that I can’t think and cope any more. We went back home with my mother, and told the bad news to father. Then we decided (actually they decided because I wasn’t in the state of making decisions) that we don’t have a choice but to go back together, with my father.

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