Love, Dad

17. Days Go By

We didn't expect the six months to be up so fast. It wasn't like I didn't know—I knew from the very beginning that there wasn't enough time, and that what we did have was going to be short. Only, it seemed like just yesterday when I had gotten the call from Caiti, telling me the bad news. Not that it mattered, because time went on even though we weren't ready, and despite our hopes that we weren't quite at the end, we had to face the truth. Six months. Six months and my father was still alive and well. As well as he could be, anyways.

The doctors didn't know what to say, only that things like this happened from time to time. Of course that just meant that he could honestly go at any moment, now more than ever. Though I was grateful for him still being here with us, I also felt terrified, knowing that if I blinked he could be gone in a second. Clearly dad didn't want any of us to be concerned about that, even though each of us couldn't help but to be. For his sake we tried not to talk about it, at least not around him, but it was difficult pretending that things didn't feel the way they did. Still, I had Levi to get me through it.

"You shouldn't worry about it, they were already wrong about the time, who knows how long he'll stick around." He looked at me reassuringly as we toiled outside, trying to ease my fears about my dad dying.

"I guess I shouldn't complain too much, I mean I am getting more time with him than I thought, so that's a good thing. Right?" I straightened myself out and wiped my brow, grateful that he had agreed to help me out today with the work that needed to be down around the farm.

"Exactly. Besides, it's not like he's going anywhere anytime soon. He looked good this morning," with his usual smile he went back to working. Naturally I knew that he wanted to make me feel better, because that was just the kind of person he was, but as my boyfriend it made even more sense for him to try the way he did. Only, I wished that he wouldn't say things like that to me, because one day he would say it and it wouldn't be true. Yet he just wanted to help, I understood that, so I didn't give him any trouble about it as I returned his smile with my own before following his lead and beginning again too.

Honestly I had hoped that diving into all the tasks I'd allowed to accumulate would fill my mind, distract me from the thoughts that plagued me, but they didn't. Even if it wasn't today, or tomorrow, or even this year, I still knew that it was coming eventually. And I wasn't sure how I was going to handle that. Just the thought of what it would be like—the million and one scenarios that ran through my head—left me distraught. The words, the emotions, all the things that came with them swirled around inside of me chaotically, and I tried my best to beat them down and calm myself.

"Still, he's all I had growing up. I don't know what I'd do without him." It wasn't like I needed to say it out loud, because I felt like he understood already, but it gave me some relief. It was true, dad was the only thing I'd had. He'd been the one to teach me almost everything, from shaving and driving, to balancing a check book. So many years—nearly my whole life—filled with memories of him, and I didn't know what I would become once I had to go on in a world that had forgotten him. My dad. My hero. He was everything. I'd gone without him before, yes, but it was different those five years. I wasn't myself, I was only the person I had created, and I wouldn't go back to that. But this, right here, my authentic self, that was what made me unsure without him.

"He's not all you had. You won't be alone." Levi was certain with his words, and we both knew what he meant. I'd also spent my entire like with my best friend, and I would continue spending it with him as my lover, my boyfriend. But we both knew that it was different too, because he could never hold the place in my heart that dad did, he would never be able to fill it and stop it from breaking. He would, however, be there to stop me from breaking. Maybe he couldn't occupy that part, but he held his own piece of me, one just as big in its own way.