6/23/2012

Dear Papa,

Today, you forgot me.

You were supposed to pick me up at five,
but you weren't there, so I called home, to ask Mama what time you had left.
And when you picked up, your voice was laced with sleep,
and the end of a dream grew like a vine, into my ears and through me.
When I was little, I ate watermelon seeds and sunflower seeds,
and you always said I'd have a garden out my ears.
Once, I licked the pollen from a calla lily, to grow them for the garden.
I told you in giggles,
 and Mama sent me to wash out my mouth, because
the turmeric-yellow centers are a little
toxic.
Nothing ever grew out of my ears,
but little seeds planted in them grew inwards,
and I  became.
I hear whispers and love songs and car horns,
rain on roofs and the radio turned low,
and they all sound like sighs.
There is a language in sighs,
and silences.
And the sigh at the end of your dream was one I knew.
I loved and hated hearing it, like a favorite story that you've
told a hundred times,
or noticing a perfect sunset, that signals the end of something more than a day.

I'm sorry I woke you.
go back to sleep.

Love,
yr daughter

6/21/2012

Dear Papa,

I watched you bike to your bone marrow test today. Mama didn't want you to bike: she's worried about you.
But I like that you are biking and
going alone;
It's like you're just running errands,
going to the grocery or the bank.
Normal, routine, every day things instead of isolated incidents,
So that it's just a part of your life and not the precursor to your death.
It doesn't make a difference, really. But it makes it easier to pretend.
and we need to pretend;
game faces as we fight the ordinary battles.
I can't cure you, clean you, kill your disease,
so I wash dishes and do laundry and go for long runs.
I am not a perfect daughter. I'm not even sure I'm a good daughter.
I want to be though, I want to be everything you want me to be.
but lately, seeing you and being here has upset me,
so I've been out,
and when I'm in, I sleep.
and sleep.
and dream.
My dreams, even my nightmares, are better than my reality
because I never dream you sick.

I am afraid to leave you in the fall.
I want to stay here and hover, and have late night conversations in the kitchen
that wake Mama upstairs.
Because at the end of each, I am afraid they are numbered.

I won't stay though;
the daughter you want wouldn't.

Love,
yr daughter

6/16/2012

Dear Papa,

I just got home, and I think you're still up, hiccuping in the other room.
You don't know that I know your hiccups are a symptom.
It seems stupid, the hiccups, but they keep you awake.
Like tiny, incessant internal screams
that your body makes in response to the
army of tiny incessant cells that are taking over your body,
my father.


Last week, you hiccuped until 3:30,
 and I think I hear them through the wall.
But I hope you aren't, and until I see you,
I can hope you are in bed, asleep, in a dream.


Call it wishful thinking,
I call it a lullaby.

Love,
yr daughter

6/13/2012

Dear Papa,

One trait of yours that I hope to adopt is the way you process information. Mama and I are instant responders, we reply as quickly as we can. We argue to learn- we test new arguments on each other, on you, on anybody who will listen to us.
You say very little, and think all the way through.
You do not need to test your arguments. When you make them, you are sure.
Of course, sometimes, you are wrong. (I think)
and there is no reasoning with you when you are. You've already done all the reasoning you're going to do.

You do that with everything, you know? Some things I would expect, but everything.
Our discussion in the grocery store yesterday, the difference between an action that simply warrants disapproval and one that harms society. Laws and rules and regulations, and the right way to make them.
You are looking for a rule, and equation, that works all the time, that caters to our beliefs.
Maybe there isn't one.
Maybe it's case by case.
But secretly, we both think there is some complicated code that would cover it all correctly.
We hunt for it when we're asleep, when we dream.
In real life, we are only tempted by problems we can't solve.
I failed a math test once, because I couldn't solve a problem
and the more time I spent on it
the more I felt like I should just finish it.
Because otherwise, all that time would be a waste.
You told me that that often happens,
in relationships, too.
You were right.

Love,
yr daughter

6/12/2012

Dear Papa,

Today is the 5th year anniversary of (my grandmother)'s death. You remember.
Mama keeps talking about how important dinner tonight is to (my grandfather). Really, what she means is that it's important to her. That's why she's so worried about who he invites, and what he makes. She wants it to honor her mother, but she also thinks it shouldn't matter to her. It's ok if it matters to him. If it matters to him, her follow-through becomes her respecting the grieving process of her elderly father. It's the difference between her duty towards her living parent and her dead one.

It's just a day. June 12, really any day in early June, they all feel the same to me.
But we mark it, and the significance we give it rides heavy. I remember things.
That's the point of birthdays, and anniversaries, and days of remembrance, I think.
A little reminder to look back and reflect on what we learned five or three years ago, and how things have changed.

Mama was a mess, remember?
She told me that she didn't get a chance to tell (my grandmother) that she loved her before she died.
I didn't know how to react. I just said "She knew."
and I think she did know.
then Mama told me my hair smelled good, like coconuts.
I hope that if[when] you die, if I don't find a time or way to say it, you know that I love you.
and I wish I could explain it in words, pack the meaning in,
like a poem,
before you gave up on poetry.
It doesn't matter that it wouldn't impact many people, Papa. That's not the point.
It would only need to reach you.
but it's a moot point; I can't.

I hope my love for you is as obvious as yours for me.
and even if it isn't, I hope someone tells me that it was, that you knew. 

Three years ago today, you were first diagnosed. I know, that means even less. Just the day of your doctors appointment, after the weeks, the months, that ended when R---- noticed the night sweats.
I remember that day with such clarity though. For you, for biology, for reality it wasn't a first day, but for me it was.

I didn't come to a single appointment. I didn't want to see it. I escaped.
I'm ready now, though.
We can watch that movie you wanted to see, something about Forks and Knives?
and pretend that we're just upstairs, or in the study.
Or I can watch a Rom Com, and you can look over my shoulder and tell me how silly it is.
I'll pretend not to notice when you cry at the end.

Love,
yr daughter

6/11/2012

Dear Papa,

I know that you are sick [again] . It scares me, because I think it will go on like this forever. You might get better [again] this summer, but then you will get sick [again] when I am 21, when I am 24, when I am 27, until you stop getting better. It's eerily the same, like a three year time bomb. I am stronger now, though. better. We don’t believe in God, you and I. Mama does a little bit. Not in a normal way, but she thinks the universe is too wonderful and mysterious to be anything but a benevolent overarching source of order. R---  has the intellectual atheism of someone too young to understand his own beliefs yet. We don’t believe in God, but I hope Mama is right. I hope that this [again] three years later is to show me how much better I am, how much better I can be than I was before. Is it selfish to think of your illness as something that is happening to me? Jeanne would think so. The cells are growing in your body. They make you tired and old.

You have Cancer.

Cancer.

Cancer.

I just have worries.

I want to be asleep so I don’t have to recognize the existence of your disease.  I don’t want you to be sick, Papa. I don’t want to be tested, it’s not worth the risk.

I want things to stay the same, stay the same.

We’re at a good place now, we have been for some time.

You’ve said things that have hurt my feelings, and I’ve done things you’ve thought are inconsiderate, but I know you think I’ve turned out pretty well and it means the world to me.

We are at a good place now, aren’t we? You laugh at my jokes, and today you helped me find the middle section of the coffee maker. I love you so much.

You know I’m not really trying as of late, don’t you? I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I use the pencil sharpener when you’re on the phone and that I respond so casually when you get really, really mad.

I don’t feel like that, really, I don’t. I’m furious, or hurt, or both. I just pretend not to be because whoever cares less wins. That’s what I’ve learned.

You will never learn that, because it’s the sort of thing that is in my nature and not yours. 

Love,

yr daughter