In reference to growing older, one of the hardest things about it, is watching one's parents grow old, realizing that they too will one day have to submit to death’s unrelenting will, and that we, the children, are next.
Just a few months ago I learned that my father was diagnosed with High blood pressure, Sugar Diabetes, and high Cholesterol, and since then I have watched my father, who has always been my superman, turn into a mere mortal. Being too proud to accept the changes in his body, he remains in defiance, unwilling to take his medication, or return to the Doctor at all. Meanwhile, the family watches, and witnesses, the body of a man once popularly known for his strength, wither away.
It’s hard to express my feelings about it, I stay away from home, and call my mother just enough that she knows I haven’t forgotten about her, just so that I can push this reality out of my own. When I talk to her she does not hesitate to pass grim news on to me, and by the time the conversation is over I often feel as though she’d just piled a stack of grief on my back, but my father is quite the opposite, no matter what he is going through he expresses nothing less than optimism. That optimism is dangerous, because it isn’t berthed from hope, but from the will to ignore, the will to ignore the aches and pains, the drastic loss of weight, the sharp decline in energy, and the Doctor’s orders.
The frightening thing is, I know that he can only ignore his body so long; I just hope that by then it is not too late. Lord knows I don’t know how I could or would handle the loss of my father, he is everything to me. He took me in when I was given away, and by his love I know that even in the worst of times, he has never regretted that decision, or has saw me as less than the fruit of his own loins, and for that alone, I would accept his condition as a gift, just so that he could be superman once more.
