Narrative. (original, hey?)

english essay.

Certain events can be dragged out far passed their regular expiry date, and sometimes they’re for better and other times for worse. When you hear news of a friend’s brothers’ cat passing away, it comes and goes rather quickly, and that’s how it’s meant to be. Your wedding is a different story. People will talk about that for months and months before and maybe even after the fact, which is also how it should be, not the other way around. Then there are things that no one is in agreement towards, such as pain. Should you peel the Band-Aid off quickly, or slowly? Each person will have their own preference towards these things. This is one of those things. 

I want you to imagine a family, if you will, a regular family that has collectively, as a whole, suffered through all the variable X amount of trials and tribulations that come with being a family, which everyone must suffer. A mother, a step father, with 3 boys, all surrounding a tree they had hunted down together, decorating it. It’s Christmas time, the house feels warm, warm like a truck rumbling down the highway to work in the morning, with the driver infinitely thankful for not being the walking pedestrian. There’s a silent agreement that no one goes outside or cracks a window. Heat is precious. The phone rings and the mother answers, and while the boys are still decorating and telling stories about how they each had the highest jump on a toboggan, she starts to cry. 

The doctor had phoned to inform them that the boys’ father’s cancer had reappeared, and was inoperable. A little over two years earlier the boys’ dad was diagnosed with cancer in his throat. Years of drinking, smoking, toking, and breathing in cedar dust from the mill had done a number on him. He didn’t like the idea of chemo, so decided on concentrated radiation. After a year of not knowing if he would see his second son graduate, the doctors told him it was over, he’d won. 

The mother was told her ex husband would be lucky to see 3 more months. The mother told the boys 6, at least. The decorating stopped, and the tree stood half naked the rest of the winter until it was taken down in spring, a skeleton of what it once was. One phone call had never had such an effect their family before. The mothers hair started to show grey, the eldest son trying to cope while studying for his university exams, the middle son trying to imagine not seeing his father in the bleachers while he shakes his principals hand and tips his cap, the youngest wrestling with the idea that his hero isn’t invincible. The house wasn’t warm anymore, it was hot, and clothing was itchy, music was too loud, food was bland, and light was too bright. 

That all happened on December 1st, last year, today is September 22nd, the father is still alive. 297 days later, every moment of every day, each one of them feels like they’re picking up that phone, and wishing they hadn’t. He hasn’t beaten cancer this round, and it’s passed as a possibility. He can no longer talk or eat, and needs help to get around. The eldest son is starting his 5th year in university, he’s a geologist. His middle son is testing the waters and starting his first year, following his brothers footsteps into university. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. The youngest is graduating from high school in spring. He likes animals and woodworking, but doesn’t know what he wants. The mother is working full time, and getting used to only having one kid around to help her with chores. She still somehow finds the time and the finances to make the seven hour drive to bring her sons to see their dad, now in a hospice. There’s something to be said about mothers, and how they seem to bend the mathematical rule that nothings output can be more than 100 percent. 

With all the emotion attached to someone dying, no one is sure if it’s better to watch them slowly break down, or to have them wisped away quickly. The only answer people will agree on is that it’s better not to have to think about it. I’m just glad I got to see him in the bleachers.