A few weeks ago I started watching NBC's Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist. It is a story of a woman who gains the ability to hear the inner thoughts of people through song. Her life is further complicated by a love triangle and her terminally ill father. In this episode (title above) her and her family find out that her father only has a few weeks left to live.
I knew going into this show that it may trigger emotions for me, specifically due to the father. This episode hit me full force. For all previous episodes it was easy to avoid the topic of her father's illness by focusing on other aspects of the plot, but this episode had Zoey dealing with the diagnosis of her father, so the confrontation with my feelings was unavoidable. I was never able to speak to my dad about his accident, about the cancer the doctors found, or about his last few months of life. I rejected the diagnosis, told myself that the doctors were wrong about the time he had left, and continued like nothing was wrong. Even when he was laying in the hospice bed I was still a firm believer that he would bounce back and be perfectly health. Or at least as healthy as he was before his accident. Throughout this time I was pushing aside all the hard conversations, telling myself that there would always be more time. What I didn't know then was that there is never enough time. I should have been brave like Zoey was in this episode. To sit with my father and tell him how much I care for him, how much he means to me and how much I hate that he has cancer. To tell him how I don't know how to process what I am feeling and that I don't know what I would do without him in this world. Sure, I told him thousands of times that I loved him, loved being with him, and would stay by his side, but never did I speak of his illness. Everything was status quo when it came to our conversations. That is one of my biggest regrets. Our relationship was not one that had a lot of deep personal conversations, so a talk like the one Zoey had with her father would have been brand new territory for us. Diving into such raw emotions with someone is difficult when you have never done so before. I don't think I ever truly cried in front of my dad and I didn't want to bring him down with my tears. I didn't want him to worry about me. In his last few weeks of life he asked my Aunt and I if it was worth it for him to keep fighting. If the treatment and the medications were something he should even continue doing. I answered with a resounding yes, and immediately changed the subject to picking something to watch on the TV. He had made an opening for me to speak about what was happening to him and even then I couldn't do it. My instinct was to run away from the actuality of the situation and rather be the best caregiver I could. Being the best caregiver meant removing myself emotionally from the situation. In Zoey's eyes this was the incorrect thing to do and she was brave enough to have the short "chat" with her father about his inevitable death. I am still learning how to survive and cope with this loss, with my regrets. I am still trying to figure out how to go on and finish my PhD and continue my life. I know I could have said more to him, been there for him emotionally, but at the time I couldn't. I was just barely beginning to accept that he had to retire. He thankfully had my Aunt Meg there for him, to talk to through the trying time of coming to terms with your own mortality. I may have not done what was best or most healthy, but I made damn sure that he knew how much I loved him and how much he meant to me. To those of you dealing with similar situations. Know that there will never be enough time. Have those difficult conversations while you can. You never know when the end will be.
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Madison Arza KennedyThis blog is to document my journey through my PhD while dealing with the early loss of my father Tom Kennedy. Archives
March 2020
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