I hated even tiptoeing on the thought that my parents were going to die someday. Maybe I’m a total Pollyana, or a complete denialist, but I perished all thoughts of their inevitable perishing. Naturally my mind, or dreams, would float up to that dangerous dark cloud occasionally. I reassured myself, “Your parents are healthy. You still have plenty of time with them.”
Living 15 years abroad means you see your family age quicker. You see them in separated blocks of time – maybe once or twice a year. The first handful of visits back, they look as they did the time before. Maybe some weight loss or gain, a few more grays, but overall, comfortably static. Then there’s a day you come home and see your parents old. I remember when I started to see the undeniable proof that my parents were truly mere mortals, and it was jarring.
The last time I met Dad at the airport, he looked gaunt and paler than usual. He was always hilariously pale, and in the summers, we would joke about how Mom’s Portuguese skin darkened beautifully from the sun, while Dad’s skin was blinding when the sun hit it – reflecting the same shade of white from the dude in the movie Powder. There was something so very unsettling about his eyes. Today, he looked as if he’d seen something horrific. Little did we know the real horror that awaited us.
Dad was always a hypochondriac. For as long as I can remember, this very pragmatic, logical man would jump to the absolute worse-case scenario when it came to his health. It wasn’t entirely his fault; my grandmother excelled at fearing nearly everything on God’s green earth. She was the physical manifestation of the expression “God-fearing.” She refused to learn how to drive because she was afraid to get into an accident. She refused to learn a lot of things. She denied Dad permission to go to Boy Scouts (“I don’t want you to sleep in the woods with grown men!” and to her credit, she was onto something there), to learn how to swim (“You’ll drown!”), or to play team sports at school (“You’ll hurt yourself!”). Any ailment that befell her, her husband, or her children, was an immediate visit to the doctor, no questions asked. She was always fearful that whatever plagued them could maim or kill them.
Dad’s hypochondria tick was to ask if every mole, spot, pain, or ache was a sign of cancer. I remember him often saying to Mom, “Pat, grab a flashlight and a magnifying glass. Look at this. Is it cancer?” and my Mom honored his request with a predictable eye roll, always ending her examination with “Arthur, if you’re really worried about it, go see the doctor.” Dad could be funny about it sometimes, annoying Mom just to make me laugh. “Is it cancer?” was definitely a catchphrase in our house. But underneath he was terrified of cancer.
In 1991, Dad’s cherished younger and only brother, Ricky, tragically withered away at 42 from colon cancer. I was 6 years old and remember seeing my cousins, aged 6 and 8, staring blankly at their dad’s flowery casket. I remember the tidal of tears of my grandparents, my aunts, my father. In 2002, Dad’s father suffered terribly with lung cancer. My grandfather, Arthur L. Bowes, served in the Navy repairing WWII war ships in the Pacific Islands. The US government acknowledged that his lung cancer was directly related to his service. There were also many cancer cases on Dad’s Italian side of the family (my grandmother’s side), so I couldn’t blame Dad for being worried.
When I walked out of Logan Airport’s Terminal E on December 23, 2021, I had already known the news: Dad was going to have heart surgery. A year or so before, when the cardiologist discovered a valve issue, he wasn’t concerned. Dad wasn’t feeling any physical effects that could come with a leaky valve, so the doctor left it in Dad’s court, saying he would eventually need surgery but that it was still OK for now. Rather than start the process of scheduling the surgery, Dad hung back. Mom had gently nudged him to get the surgery done sooner than later, since it was only going to get worse. The idea of heart surgery terrified Dad, and that fear overrode his usual tendency to run to the doctor. Finally, upon a routine check, the heart valve was found to be worsening, and surgery would need to be done immediately. His surgery was scheduled for December 24, 2021.
I assumed the panicked, faraway look in his eyes that greeted me at the Arrivals gate was related to the surgery the next day. But as I hugged him tight, he said “Cheryl, the surgery was canceled.”
He grabbed my luggage bag handle, and we all walked toward the elevators. I looked worriedly at Mom, and she looked back at me despondently. Whatever was going to be said was going to come from Dad.
“Wait, what? Why? Did you reschedule?”
“No.”
“What’s wrong?”
‘I’ll tell you when we get to the car.”
After we climbed into the car, Dad closed the door, sighed heavily and quietly announced, voice wavering, “They found something in my liver during the pre-surgery scan.”
Immediately my thoughts went to cancer.
Then my mind quickly recalibrated, launching into the “It’s-Ok-Nothing-Is-Fucked” mode.
“It doesn’t mean it’s cancer, Dad. Try not to worry. It could be anything. We shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”
Dad gave a resigned nod, but I knew he was unconvinced. I caught his eyes in the rearview mirror as he backed out of the parking space. They looked utterly defeated before we even knew what kind of war we’d been drafted into. Deeply afraid, my mind spiraled as I shifted uncomfortably in the backseat. The ghastly realization that Dad could really have cancer swayed silently like a glistening pendulum over our heads as we drove over Boston’s notoriously pockmarked streets.
“Is it cancer?”