I’ve never realized how precious family is until it’s gone. How great they make your life, how entertaining they make your day. Just their smile—when they show their bright teeth that shine as bright as the sun—gives me a warm feeling in my heart. But when it’s gone—then you realize what you are missing. You realize how great you had it, how perfect your life was even without all the fancy toys the rich take for granted.
I remember the day when it happened, when I first found out. When my life changed forever. It was a bright Tuesday. The sun shone down upon our camper, casting intricate shadows across the grass, making the brick outline of our fire ring glimmer with the thousand tiny stones engrained in the brick.
We were outside with friends, my mother was in her bathrobe and she walked out of the camper, thinking we were alone, but some of our camping buddies were on the porch chatting with us. She froze, staring, her brown eyes dark and embarrassed as they widened into circles. We all laughed. They joked with her, asking if she needed an intervention. She laughed and strode down the steps to the camper onto our cement deck and modeled the robe. Swinging her hips to the sound of the music coming from our camper speakers. My dad fell to the ground laughing—or at least that’s what we thought. We second-guessed ourselves when he ran into the bathroom, throwing up blood along with red stool.
My mother rushed him to the hospital nearly twenty miles away. She hadn’t thought to take a bucket, so when they got to the hospital the car stunk of vomit and the rugs were stained brown with red flecks. She got him into the emergency room. They did everything they could, but it wasn’t enough. Even with the extensive knowledge doctors had, there was nothing they could do. Even with the endless technology at their disposal, there was nothing they could do. Even with the never-ending praying my mother did, there was nothing that could be done.
My mother came home without my father. They—the hospital—kept him overnight to preform tests, just to be sure of the problem, and to see if there was anything they could do. They told my mother to go home and get some sleep. She came home in the black minivan, her face sober and tear stricken. My mother opened the car door, fresh tears painting a trail down her beautiful face.
When we—me and my two brothers, along with the two families who stayed with us to help us through the situation—ran to my mother and asked how dad was. She merely shook her head, her brown curls shaking as she did so. Tears welled in all our eyes. My brother—the one who was closest to dad—fell to his knees, weeping and praying to God.
“There has to be something they can do,” I said.
“No,” my mother replied, “they are keeping him overnight, but they said we shouldn’t get our hopes up.”
The tears finally fell down my face, splashing to the ground in what seemed like massive explosions.
“What did they say was wrong with him,” Krista—my mother’s friend—asked.
“Cancer,” my mother said simply. “It started in his kidney and moved all through his body. It would’ve been curable a year ago, but now it’s too late. The symptoms don’t appear until it’s too late. And now…it’s too late.” My mother collapsed into my arms, her tears soaking my shirt.
“It can’t be,” I said.
“It is,” she replied, not willing to say any more.
That night when I was going to bed I felt something in me. Something I wish I could forget, but I know I never will. It will stick with me for the rest of my life, until the day I die. Several minutes later my mother’s phone rang. It was the hospital saying that my dad had passed away. The phone fell from my mother’s hand and broke on the hard ground, the screen shattering into a thousand shards, just as our life had.
I ran to my mother, taking her in my arms, tears running down our face and wetting our clothes as if we had just went through a shower fully clothed. When I tore my eyes open I saw something. A dim light in the shape of a figure. A smile was on its face. It stared at us, nodding its head and smiling a beautiful smile I had seen so many times, loved so much.
“Dad,” I whispered. But he was already gone.