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