Happy New Year
That's what everyone will say tomorrow and until now it's just been a kind regard, something with sentiment and intent that you have a nice few months ahead. Right now it feels like the starting pistol to what could well be the hardest 12 months of my life.
October 22nd 2015 - the day my Dad told me it was Cancer. A horrid word for something horrid that affects millions of people daily. But never to me or mine. Until now. You could say at 28 and only knowing a handful of distant friends and relatives touched by the disease that I'd been somewhat fortunate. The most recent a great uncle who had passed from an aggressive form of oesophageal cancer which had devastated my Gramps, a painful thing to see, but still someone I'd seen maybe two or three times in the last 10 or so years of my life. And now it was happening to my Dad. The pillar of strength, the constant, the man of the house, someone I looked up to greatly someone who I'd never thought would even be bother by a cold.
December 28th - I received a message, I'm guessing they were words too difficult for a proud man to say out loud. "I'm sorry to spoil your Christmas, but I've had it, I've got a year with chemo a matter of weeks without" there I was sat watching TV Some Christmas special of sorts I'm sure, then my world felt smashed to pieces. A cliché to some but the only words I can use to describe how I felt like I was crumbling.
Which leads to today. December 31st dreading my shift tomorrow, knowing every person will wish me happy new year, most of them know what's happening, I've broken down on shift a handful of times, give them their due my colleagues, pick me up dust me down, over me the rest of the day off (not that I can afford it) and give hugs and advice a plenty. But nothing is taking the edge off. Some how I've got to try and accept that sooner rather than later, a beautiful light in my life is going to go out, soon enough there will be a great void in the lives of so many of my family members. I can't bear to think of my Mum, my Sisters, my Grandparents my Niece and how much they love him and how much they need him. How much I need him.
More than anything my heart just feels broken, I don't know how I'll ever be happy again. How can I find any positivity in losing the greatest man in my life.
