Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of the day pancreatic cancer took my dad. It’s a marker I’ve thought about since the very beginning: where would we be at ten years? What would he have missed in that much time? What would we have missed? My dad is as real to me today as he was then. In all unembarrassed honesty, I miss him so much my chest aches. The death of a parent before anybody is ready creates this weird sort of outline where the person should be standing in your life. The outline of that lost person never goes away: it might fade, it might lose its edges a bit now and again, but it’s always there. Every dinner, every holiday, every milestone: the outline, standing there, empty where it should’ve been whole. I missed David’s dad’s anniversary a couple weeks ago (Yes, I just switched gears and mentioned David’s dad. April is a FUN month for our household). His was 9 years, and I hadn’t updated my calendar yet, and the day came and went until the evening, when David mentioned it…
David and I ran a 5K called PurpleStride this weekend, along with some very game family members who volunteered to push our children around–all 71 pounds of them, mind you–in a stroller on the coinciding walk. The whole purpose was to raise funds and awareness for research to find a cure for pancreatic cancer. Only six percent of all people who are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer are alive five years later. My father was not in this minority. And the thing with pancreatic cancer is how little it’s discussed, how little money is funnelled to research. Pancreatic cancer is seen as the lost cause. I don’t like lost causes. They annoy me. So we ran. And ran we did. Holy Moses, that was the pits. We didn’t find out till we got there that the course was cross-country. I thought it was a mistake when I saw the start/finish line marked in the grass. At the base of a hill. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I told David. “They’re joking, right? This was supposed to be a fun run!”…
