Saying Goodbye

Parents, we love them right, we worry about them when they get older in the years. Imagine this, one day you are talking to your dad, and the next few weeks he was gone. Forever. Right? that hits. For me it a struggle not having him around.

It start in September when we found out he had stage 4 cancer, there is nothing he can really so to fight it. As the month goes on, he gets weaker, thinner and a lot less looking like my dad I grew up with. But you have to keep a big smile on.

Middle of September, my oldest brother decided he should honor our father's dying wishes and move him to his place 4 hours away from us. Leaving me and my youngest brother in a house by ourselves. How messed up is that. You come home from school and you find all of his clothes are gone, toothbrush and whatever he needed, all gone. Without even saying goodbye to us. Not even one note. I was 18 when this happened and it has traumatized me to this day. Why would a dying father just up and leave his family at such a young age. Why?

We come home, nobody is around, I have my little brother upset, unable to find his dad and tell him he made the Volleyball team. I know at this moment we had to learn how to live on our own. With a minimum wage job and who knows how much the rent was in our house. We struggled. A lot. Most nights we spent together wondering why he would do this, other nights we would go to our friends because sleeping in our family home didn't feel the same.

As a few months go on, we are still living in that house but we are with our older sister, helping us make rent and teaching us about being adults. Keep in mid we barley knew our older sister, but having someone there as family helps us a lot. Now its the middle of November we finally was allowed to drive out to our father too see him. Yes, you read that right. We had to ask my brother if we can come out and see our dad. Most of the times it was a solid no. But this time was a yes.

We drive out there and he isn't the same. He isn't my dad. What happened. We spend the weekend out there and made the most of it, little did we know this was our only chance to see him and our last chance. Our brother has our dad in a 5th wheel trailer for the time being. Like he was only allowed in his house to shower and eat. We get there and the minute we get comfortable with the situation he is in, our brother comes out saying get off the property. As left left hurt and upset, we both looked over in the car and we see our dad slouched over, head down, crying. This is an image I cant not ever forget.

Come December, Christmas time. I call him a bunch, we talk and he sounds different. More testing was done and I was left out. We hung up the phone and we went about our night. Next day, had to find out over social media the passing of my father. Not even a phone call was attempted. Over Facebook. This was one wish my dad told me he never wanted to happen. but look, it did. I was broken. My little brother met up with me as I was living in the city in my new place. We hugged and called our sister. Our dad dyed with family but not us there by his side.

To this day I wish I had the courage to ask my brother why he took our dad away from us, we he decided to up and leave with no note.