mother & father

I know, I haven't written anything since my many adventures in NYC, but I was sick part of last week and just didn't have the time to blog. While I was home sick last Wednesday, I caught up on some TV off Tivo. Quick aside, TiVo is my best friend. I can't imagine life without it now. I can't STAND to watch TV in real time.

Anyway, I decided to watch the most recent episode of Real World to see what happened to Danny. The previews showed him getting some bad news from home and I was curious as to what this could be. The Real World hasn't been 'real' in years, yet I always watch at least a couple episodes each season and then get fed up with them. This season in Austin has been no exception. Until this past week that is. Danny, the Boston boy, gets a call from his dad that his mom had died Valentine's morning from a heart attack. The rest of the episode was basically watching Danny have multiple break-downs and his roommates trying to find some way to comfort him.

As I'm laying on the couch watching this, I couldn't help but think, how would I react if I got a phone call today, telling me that one of my parents had just passed away. I'm sure I would be a basket-case. In the last few years, both my grandmothers and my great-uncle all passed away. I was relatively close with each of them, yet I didn't get that upset when any of them passed. Each of them were in their mid-eighties and it wasn't a real shock when they died. My parents though were both extremely distraught when their moms died. How could you not be?

I just really can't imagine dealing with the loss of a parent at this age. Even though I am not nearly as close to my father as I am with my mother, I just can't think of what my life would be like without him in it. Just the other day, we were in the car driving home and he was telling me how he was a fire safety consultant for 20th Century Fox on the set of "Tora, Tora, Tora". I never knew that. I know there are a million other stories that I have just never heard about my dad's early adulthood. The man lived in San Diego, Hawaii and Japan so there are probably hundreds of stories that I have just never asked about.

I know that people lose their parents all the time. Just sitting here, I can think of at least seven different friends who have already lost one of their parents. All of them have learned to deal with that pain and loss in some way. I guess I should just be thankful for the time I have had with my parents and look forward to the time I get to spend with them in the future.

On top of all these thoughts of my parents death, TV has forced me to think about parents losing one of their children. I am big fan of Six Feet Under and just two weeks ago, one of the main characters died. That really made me start thinking about my own "brush" with mortality and to think about how hard it was for my family to watch me go through two operations, not knowing what was going to happen to me.

My dad really brought the point home this weekend. He mentioned to me that the bill came from Johns Hopkins from the Cryogenics lab. When I went through all my testicular cancer in '99, I had sperm frozen, in case I was rendered in fertile for any reason. Thankfully, that was not an issue. But, it has always been somewhat of a comfort to me to know that I have some swimmers on ice, should I ever decide that I want kids of my own. Everything will all ready be taken care of on my part.

But this year, Hopkins has drastically raised their annual charge this year, and it is almost ridiculous for my parents to continue paying for this. I don't mind that my parents don't want to spend that money on something so seemingly trivial now, but it still was hard for me in a way. I just didn't want to let go of that little bit of my 'legacy'. It was a comfort to me to always have that there as a back-up.

Then again, it has been six years (Holy Shit! Just typing that, it is hard to believe that I have really been cancer free for six years.) since all of that and there is no need for it. I guess that I just have look at that as the last reminder of that time in my life and it is finally time for me let go of that and press forward.