Remembering my father: In honor of his 68th birthday.

It’s been less than a month since my father passed away even though it feels like years have gone by. Two nights before his funeral, I sat down to draft his obituary and my final remarks for the burial. Tears flooded my eyes because I didn’t know what to say — I felt like I had lost my father years ago. Despite not having had a real conservation with him since high school, I terribly miss his presence. I miss seeing his smile and his eyes light up whenever I came home to see him. I didn’t need verbal communication to understand he felt comforted when he was around family. Putting my goodbye into words triggered an extreme flashback to my childhood and forced me to relive memories of my former life, one that now feels so distant and separated from today’s reality. During my former life we went on trips, enjoyed the outdoors, and listened to my dad tell jokes about his childhood. I’m nostalgic for the days before his cardiovascular diseases and cancer turned gatherings into melancholy reflections of nostalgia towards the past.

As my father’s health gradually declined over the past few years, he slowly lost his personality. At the time, I didn’t realize what was going on. I thought this was a result of aging or maybe we couldn’t find common ground over things we once bonded over. Ever since he had his seizure in August of 2020 which led to his metastatic small cell lung cancer diagnosis, his mental acuity rapidly declined on a daily basis.

Last night, I scrolled through his phone and read his text messages from the last four years and noticed a stark difference in his communication. Over time, paragraph responses turned into sentences, sentences turned into words, and words turned into misspelled single word replies. I thought to myself, “How was I blind to these changes? Why didn’t I notice a difference in his mental aptitude?” The ugly reality is that we don’t notice changes when they slowly happen before our eyes. When we’re present and in the moment we tend to overlook how much and how quickly the world around us is changing.

Stay present, stay in the moment, but stay vigilant. Life is short.

Happy Birthday, Dad. I’m sorry you’re not here to celebrate.