Double the love

(This post was written on May 17 and I never got to finish it. But I just decided to post it anyway)

I’ve been having negative thoughts lately…a bad feeling in my gut and heaviness in my heart.

The thought of losing my father has always been part of our daily lives ever since he was diagnosed with brain tumor nine years ago. But when this thought started to take shape in the past week into a close possibility, it erased every single moment we’ve lived with the illness! It felt like he was just diagnosed.

Everything came back…the same fear, the anxiety, and the memories of the most difficult moments we had when we first found out about my parents’ illness all rushed back.

Until last week, I felt things were relatively under control. I don’t know what happened a few days ago, a strange feeling of an urgent attachment to my father took over.

I suddenly had a gut feeling to do anything he asks for even the things that aren’t necessarily good for him like unhealthy food or too much caffeine. It was as if a voice inside of me was telling me it was now time to let go.

It may or may not be time but the look on his face says it all. Although he can’t express with words his eyes are pleading for us to stop torturing him with routine!

And we succumbed without negotiation…I don’t know what happened but I felt that we were inspired to grant him his freedom.

I never felt this scared ever since we were faced with the reality that my father’s brain tumor was untreatable. I don’t know what to think or how to rationalize or come to terms with the possibility of anything happening anytime soon.

A million thoughts are thundering through my head. I suddenly feel guilty for every second I complained about my father’s symptoms or felt tired because of them. I feel guilty for sometimes thinking of him as a burden!

I can’t help it but lately my memory is taking me back to the different stages of my father’s journey with his disease and it’s tiring to think of everything we went through.  

I don’t know why this is happening to me but I feel that God has suddenly granted me double the patience and double the strength to carry on caring for my father with all the love there is.

I must admit that sometimes I look at my life in the past nine years and ask God why? Why did I have to go through all this? Why was I chosen among all these people to live the most vital years of my life worrying about loss? I lost my mother and lived all these years worrying about losing my father.

And the scariest thought is that sometimes I feel like I lost sense of reality and can’t physically identify with most of what happens to me and around me. I sometimes make believe that I was and still am watching a long movie.