His Wasteland

[Gita]

The doctor who told my father he had incurable cancer spent 10 seconds delivering that news before leaving the examining room.

My father spent the next five months absorbing that fact, fading from a vigorous man capable of booming laughter to a wraith in a chair who stared into the middle distance.

"It was the diagnosis that killed him," my mother told me years later, "not the cancer itself."

I doubt that was exactly true, but I know my father well enough to believe that he would have lived longer if he had gone to the movies that day or to the new showing of Spanish impressionist painters at the Musee des Beaux Arts instead of to that oncologist. My father was lost to us -- to himself -- long before he stopped breathing.

In the last weeks of his life, I lay on my parents'  bed and sang or read the newspaper aloud to him, feeling his fear like a cold, impenetrable wasteland around him. 

[Jamie Hogan]

Poignant to a stunning degree, G, and nearly too real. I hope this was cathartic, because it had to be a painful thing to write. You have such depth to you, as a writer. There is no place you can't go with words, and no place I won't follow you.

[Jenny]

I can feel the love in your relationship with him. It doesn't matter how much time passes, there are certain memories that are fresh and vital, a deep part of who you are. This reflection is very moving. I hope that when I pass I have such a loved one nearby.

[Stephen Torelli]

Gita, this piece is very difficult to comment on yet it's a reality that I have also experienced. And I agree with TC... very powerful.

[Teresa]

I have never taken care of a dying loved one.  My loved ones died too soon which was good and bad because had they lingered,  I'm not sure how well I would have held up.  I can be a coward when faced with death, any death, and I feel comforted and shamed when I read something like this  - comforted by the image of the person singing and reading, shamed because I'm not sure I'd be strong enough to get out of the way and focus on the dying.  I want to be that selfless, to ignore my own pain and present as a positive force to ease this difficult process for someone I love.  I just haven't had the opportunity to try.  You have presented a good example to follow, strong and selfless.  Maybe you couldn't take away his fear, but you lessened it.  And as you can see this piece is extremely moving because I can't stop.  Thank you for sharing this.  The last sentence is all you intended it to be.  Very powerful, leaves me feeling that wasteland.  Brava.

[Angela]

A straightforward and very touching six, Gita.  I am moved by how clearly and concisely you delivered your message, while maintaining an emotive feel.  Fine job.

[Payam Ghassemlou]

Well done. Thanks for sharing it.

[Gita]

Nonfiction, and yes,  my father's last months would have been very different if he had been given some glimmer of hope or encouragement. Tumors are just tumors. Fear + hopelessness = mortal blow.  Thanks y'all for the comments.

[Brad Rose]

This is very moving, poignant, and sorrowful.  I wish it were fiction.  I wonder if the MD had been more humane, if this whole tale would have been different.  I wonder if kindness couldn't change the quality of the life yet to come, even if it couldn't have changed the ultimate outcome.  This is so well described and a heartbreaking story.  I wish, or hope, it was fiction.  Sadly I gather it isn't.

[Sandra Davies]

A superbly-argued case for avoiding fortune tellers.   And that is not intended to be as flippant as it sounds because I recognise the pain in this - you have made it unavoidable.

[Joe Gensle]

This deep, personal share evoked in its writing a presence which I shared with you for much longer than the time it took to negotiate the six sentences. Masterfully told, telling and poignant, Geets. Bravo.