I.

CAN'T.

BREATHE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

dad...

Is pain selfish? Am I selfish for feeling it the way I do?

Why do you keep stabbing me?

I can barely get through a telephone conversation with you. I hold my breath and say "uh huh..uh huh" pretending to hear you, just focusing on memorizing your voice, not really able to follow your ramblings... and then it comes, I hear it coming. You get onto a tangent about something and it comes around to me, and in your rambling suddenly I am the enemy, and you find something, some way, to say something that hurts me so deeply that it's my heart that has cancer.

WHY?

While tears fall...

I often wonder as I look out on the ocean
Does it know its depth?
Your home is cradled in the largest of hands,
Part of your heart lives in that ocean,
Part of my heart lives there with you.
I stand face to face with pain and I weigh it,
And it weighs me.
And we decide together like face to face fighters about to match
Who will swing first, who will duck, and who will fall.
And as the eagles sing
Something about a ‘new kid in town’
And that deep unknowing ocean saves your heart
I often wonder as I look in on pain
Does it know its depth?
Your home will be cradled in the largest of hands.
I will know all is not lost
Because I will be there watching you soar between horizons
And I will stand face to face with pain and weigh it
And it will weigh me
Like a two lovers poised heart to heart to dance.
And the eagles will still sing
And the boat will still rock
And part of my heart will still live with you.

(Sarah - 2009)

Last Xmas Card

I begged for another holiday with you. I may not have "begged" you, I don't think begging would work anyhow, but it's what I wanted so badly. I begged for more time for you, time to buy presents for you and give you pointless cards and share meaningful sentiments, to wear labels of our deepest feelings.
It makes me realize just how few we've had, in my memory anyhow.

• The one where we shared the innocent joy of setting up a race car track.
• The one where you came on Christmas eve and surprised us; you came all the way from the Yukon overnight on a bus and took mom shopping at Toys R Us and bought everything in sight. You even bought things for Dani.
• The one where you came to stay with me in my apartment while I was in college. I made you a stocking; you loved my cooking, and napped happily on my sofa.

There has to be more than that. Is there? I strain to remember them, Dad.
If there is one missing, I pray that one day while I sit watching snow fall, my own wrinkles appearing deeper and more defined, and I look back on years.. I dream that then, a single snowflake of a memory will fall silently down and land on my skin and as it melts into me I will be given the gift of a lost holiday with you.

Dad, what if Christmas was as small as a single decoration? What if the entire holiday could be hung on a tree? Somehow, I see the world with your eyes now, and truthfully, that simple Christmas living inside of one tiny bit of flock, seems so perfect... so serene... so ideal. What is this holiday Dad? What has it meant to you? What memories do you cherish? Are they the same as mine?

I bought your card today. I used to pour over the prose in each one, looking for one that said just the pefect thing. It seemed so important then. 'Oh! I have to get Dad's card, I can't forget.'
It's a piece of colorful paper, Dad.
And today when I bought it, I scanned the words and maybe one line or two was true.. the rest seemed almost... obligation. Buy a card, write a scentence, sign it with x's and o's and seal it with a lick. Mail it and know that the person reading it will know how much you care. 'When you care enough to send the very best.' Ha!
I`m sorry Hallmark but have you heard my dad is dieing? Do you make a `Last Christmas` card? That one single action of buying a card seems so pointless now. Something I used to put so much importance into, now, I could barely read them. They were just words, paper, glue, glitter.

More like: `Hallmark, when you dont think the gift you bought is quite enough to prove your love.`

I love you Daddy, I always will. And Christmas IS only a decoration, Dad. Thank you for the gems you`ve given me every December 25th. The safety and satisfaction of knowing that out in the world somewhere there was My Dad: Christmas Hero.
I owe you my life. And when everyone wakes to Xboxes and 14 karat gold, I`ll watch the snow fall and wait for my gifts from you Dad, the perfect, unique, quickly melting droplets of days gone by.

Phone...

Conversation with dad tonight:

"I want two things: Do not revive, and do not touch my eyes. Because when I go into the next life I want to see it."

I love you daddy.

Dad...

The injury of years...

There is no place I can walk


That you will not be.

No hall

No sidewalk

No path

That will not hold your memory.



I am haunted in knowing

That one day soon,

Every inch of every mile of this earth

Will be your face

Will be your voice

And yet I am terrified to ignore it.



I can only fear the pain

And cling to the daggers

Because although they will cut me

They will be you

Your face, your voice

And I will need everything you leave me.
 
(Sarah 2009)
 
 
I had nearly two days of numb. And something small.. I can't recall what, has ripped passed my numb exterior and torn at my healing heart. I am bleeding again. Will I bleed until he is gone? And then, when the day comes, and the next and the next, will I still bleed? Yes, I am terrified of it, yes, I will. I will scream, I can see it my minds eye and my life will virtually end, my knees on pavement, I will pray to god to make me numb again, and someone will have to collect me from the leaves and place me somewhere safe, while I am broken.
I had a thought today: "Father's Day". That day will be agony for the rest of my life. His day. HIS DAY. And I cannot hug him or tell him I love him, or give him a card. Nothing sentimental will matter!!!
I will be alone and fatherless while children write backwards on blue paper. I will fall apart while families buy ties and hammers. I will curl and hide while the fathers of the world are hugged!!
And my arms will stay empty without him. Oh daddy, I love you, please please please give me one more of those materialistic holidays.... no tie, no cake, no fake card. Just my arms clinging to you one last time.

1. "I heard the news today, ohh boyyy" sang the beatles.

Start/The Stopping


1.
my flames rise to the gulf of you.
i am the orange parachute in your black and white dream.
as my brilliance flares, your leaden tent
begins to form as skin.
my light is too slow in reaching your constellation.

2.
depression takes over
in the two minutes since you have left.
you move over me like frost.
if one hundred seconds
have wrenched blood from my heart so fully,
how will hours pass?
this minute prays for childless seconds, the time filled like ashtrays.

3.
the evidence has mounted:
a hand held loosely, by you and my wrist.
you surround me fruit-like, the rind torn away.
the pulp without shelter flows unconsenting.
the moon hits and hits
again. i trim the hangnail moon and close the blinds.

4.
there is no action kind enough to express heartbreak.
I am left
shut,
the quietest of blossoms.

Stella Padnos




......When your body shakes and your breath sucks hard and you cannot feel anything but your throat and the tears blinding, then you know: that screaming you cannot do, that anger you cannot feel, that loss you have to face. Today my father is dieing.
How is there a time limit on life? How, can a man, who is invincible, become so human with 3 words: 'I have Cancer.' And then he becomes mortal with "I have 6 months."
My father, my dad, my daddy: The oak tree to my sapling, the reason I keep fighting, the hand holder, the safe place, the maker of words 'I'm proud of you' and 'I love you'... how, how, can he have mortality? And now, how, how HOW, can I, his only daughter... how can I fit every last drop of a lifetime of love into '6 months to live'?
My world, this world, is crashing. Death is at the door and he is knocking hard, and no pillow on my head, no lock, no wish, no plea, is going to make death 'away' to his rotton place of theft... going to make him loose his hand on my father's rope. And when I am alone, then, death drops his cloak on my shoulders - the weight so heavy I feel my chest ashe and my stomach lurch. It's then alone, that I am sorrow. I am pure, solid, weighty sorrow...and I want to scream, I want to hate, I want to beat down doors and demand answers, I want to hide. I want anything, anything, but this....
I am 6 again and he teaches me how to make my belly look pregnant by pooching it out like he does, and I walk around like that all day... I am 9 again and we are having christmas, he kneels with me and sets up my race track, more excited then I to play it, his face live with delight as the cars careen around the plastic track... I am 12 again and he is laughing at my spaghetti sandwhiches but eating them anyway... I am 17 again and on my own for the first time, my frightened ears hearing his pride at my attempt and his offer of protection, always, always ALWAYS protection. My oak. My strong arms, my faith, my guide, my laughter, my dad. I am 29 and my father is going to die.