peter
“Last February, Dad called and asked us to come to England and see him. He announced to us that he’d been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer, with about 8 months left to live. If he chose to do chemotherapy, it might have been a couple of years. He had young grandkids that he was very fond of, and so he decided to do the chemo. We had a lovely weekend after that; doing all of the stuff we used to do, we watched the Grand Prix on the telly, drank lots of tea, watched crappy movies, had a good dinner. As my brother drove me away after that weekend, I remember bursting into tears in the car. I was thinking, “This is the last time I’m going to see my dad well, the last time I’ll see Dad as just Dad, rather than Sick Dad.” And it actually ended up being the last time I saw him alive, as he died very suddenly and unexpectedly soon after. It’s been 6 months since Dad died. It’s been hard, but I’m also quite rational, you have to let your parents go at some point, and you don’t get to choose when. In the end, I’ve been lucky to know him. I didn’t want to say goodbye to him, but then you can’t hang onto people forever. You don’t get to keep anything forever…”