We all think that we are invincible. When we are young, we think that we have this force field around our families and ourselves that protects’ us from the horrors of life. Well this innocent belief that we are invincible quickly vanished in 6th grade when my dad had cancer. You never think it can happen to you or your family until it does. His cancer came out of nowhere, which made it all the more scary. It’s hard to take it all in when you are a 6th grader. Especially when everyone knew my dad and what had happened because he was the middle school division head at my middle school. The worst thoughts start to creep into your head and take control of your brain. It possesses you and makes you crazy.

For a whole month I was a zombie. I was walking through the halls and I couldn’t say a word to anyone. I did research on my dad’s type of cancer and the survival rate was less than 50% and I read how it caused over 8,000 deaths, killing roughly 1 person per hour, 24 hours per day. Of those 43,250 newly diagnosed individuals, only slightly more than half would be alive in 5 years. These facts made it really hard to keep a positive attitude. Everyone would say something in school to me, which made it harder. It had put my life completely on pause and I couldn’t do anything else but think about my dad. It hit me hard and I never saw it coming. I could only imagine how it felt for my dad.
My dad and I are very close. He used to get up at 6 am and go to school by 6:30. I loved getting up and going with him even though my mom could take me at a later time. He was my role model and I wanted to always be around him. On the weekends we would play 3 hours of tennis on both Saturday and Sunday. He was my coach and was very intense but I wanted to be the next great, American tennis player. He loved tennis just as much as me. We would watch every match start to finish, no matter how long it was and we would analyze it after. We mostly followed Andy Roddick, as he was the one American tennis player that could challenge the likes of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic. He seemed to always disappoint us in the end but we would always root for him anyway. I started to wonder if I would ever be able to play tennis with him again or if he’d be around to watch the tennis matches we loved to watch.
My mom wouldn’t let us see him. For about half a year we weren’t allowed to see him because she didn’t want us remembering him in that condition. That seemed make it worse. I could only imagine all the tubes and different things that were implanted in his body.
Along with the scary images of my dad strapped to a hospital bed with tubs in his throat, what made it worse was the constant bringing of food and flowers every second of the day when I was home. The thought of his cancer wouldn’t leave me alone and the meals and flowers were only a reminder. We had relatives staying at our house from all over, our living room began to overflow with flowers and our fridge was overladed with meals that people had made for us. Nothing was normal.
It was the reaction of other people that had me most worried. Because I wasn’t allowed to see him, I felt like other people knew what was going on better than I did and it didn’t seem good. In school I often had moments where I broke down in the middle of class. It was a lot to handle especially because at home everyone was crying.
Finally, after what seemed like eternity, we were able to see my father when less tubes covered his body. He was very strong and happy which made it easier, even though the site of him was still tough to see. His strength made my family strong which was something we needed after all of the wild emotions that had consumed us. I thought I would finally be able to continue life “normally. “ The next two months were a little less hard. It seemed like my dad was getting better and since we were getting no more meals or flowers I guess I was right. Relatives started leaving my house and I began to become human again instead of a zombie just going through the motions.
My dad finally came home and I was so excited to see him and so glad he was back home. Everything was going back to the way it was supposed to be. When my dad walked through the door we had signs up and cards in our hands. I was expecting a happy reaction but instead my dad started crying. Watching him cry was the hardest part of the whole experience. He was always the strongest person I knew and seeing him break down was a terrifying experience. My whole family broke down with him.
We realized how lucky we were that he had beat the cancer. That although our force field of invincibility was threatened, it hadn’t been defeated. The experience had definitely been a wake up call reminding me that we aren’t invincible.
The day after my dad came home the greatest match ever played was on television. My dad and I watched a four and a half hour marathon between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. It seemed like fate that he had returned home for this match and I felt like the luckiest son in the world. I would never again take these moments for granted.