That week between Christmas and New Years seems to be a trudge for most people. It’s like we’re all just acting bitter that we don’t get a “winter break” like we did in school. Our office was closed Monday, but yesterday marked the return to the normal after what is likely the worst Christmas I’ve ever had. This week is also weird for our law firm because one partner is retiring at the end of the week and my other partner (who is also my father) is dying. Also, we’re preparing for the new attorney we hired to start in a few weeks.

My father seemed to have a good attitude at work yesterday. He doesn’t seem to be getting emotional when he talks about the cancer anymore. One of our legal assistants has a mother who has terminal breast cancer. Her and I talked about that a bit when I first found out my father had cancer. She can talk about it very matter-of-factly. She’s nineteen, so her mother is still quite young. When my father called to tell me it was pancreatic cancer and it was terminal he started crying and I stayed calm and told him eventually we would get to the point that it would be matter-of-fact discussion, but I was certain it wouldn’t be that way initially. We seem to be getting there rather quickly (it’s been five days). At least for my parents and me, “It is what it is” has been our mantra through all of this. I think for others the grief/sadness/anxiety may just be setting in.

One of our paralegals has worked with my father for sixteen years and today was her day to break down. She spent some time in my office today telling me she had tried for so long not to get emotional about it because she knew once she started crying, she wouldn’t be able to stop. The other piece to all of this is we lost a paralegal in July to leukemia, and she had been with the firm for thirty-four years. That was a huge blow to us, as a firm and on a personal level because when you work with someone for that long they very much begin to feel like family. So, it’s hard for our office to be preparing for the death of another long-time member of our work family less than six months later.   

The Es (my middle two children whose names both start with “E”) and I were discussing yesterday the concept of the glass being half-full vs. half-empty. They both believed strongly that the glass was half-full. I suspect that’s the camp I’m in as well, but for me it’s more of a “there could be less liquid than there is now” sort of position. I tend to live my life pursuant to the philosophy of the “evil stepmother” in Ever After, “No matter how bad things are, they could always be worse.” I know that any mental health professional would tell you that’s not a healthy outlook and people tell you all the time you shouldn’t say things like that to people. I try not to make comments like, “it could always be worse” to other people (except my husband because we all know our spouses get the worst of us), but that is how I tend to cope with things. “Our son needs stitches, but at least he doesn’t need surgery”; “our daughter broke her arm, but at least that drunk lady crashed into the neighbor’s mailbox instead of ours last night”; “our son got in trouble for sexual harassment, but at least we got to address these issues before it was sexual assault”; “I crashed my in-laws truck into a deer, but at least no one got hurt”; “one of my best friends from high school died of an overdose, but at least my husband was able to quit before he got to that point”; “my car broke down, but at least I was on my way back from Court not on my way to Court”; “my father is dying of cancer, but at least….”

There are so many “at leasts” I could put in there: “at least I’m an adult now,” “at least my mother will be ok financially,” “at least it’s not one of my children,” “at least I’ve been able to practice law with my father for six years and learn from him,” “at least we have received a tremendous outpouring of support,” etc. I could go on for days. There are a million ways it could be worse.

My grandpa died of prostate cancer in 2020 and he opted to not receive treatment and just let the cancer run its course. He lived with the cancer for several years. He was heavily sedated the last month or so, but for the most part he was able to live fairly comfortably until the end. I suspect that is what my father is hoping for, but with pancreatic cancer I’m not sure he’ll enjoy the same quality of life. My father also has a strangulated hernia and gallstones, which are causing him pain. He’s being told those cannot be operated on because of the cancer. The strangulated hernia can kill him if it ruptures his intestines, so we have that sort of looming over us as well. I think for my father there is some relief in just knowing why the pain exists and knowing what to prepare for. He’s not nearly as grumpy as he had been prior to the diagnosis. I’m sure for my father the trudge toward death is daunting, but he keeps telling me he is not bitter. He has told me several times nothing bad ever happened to him and he is grateful for the time he’s had and to have lived long enough to get everything situated for my mother.

One of my father’s clients told him his brother had the same diagnosis as my father ten years ago, but he’s getting treatment at mayo clinic and has lived with it for ten years now. My mother says my father doesn’t want to do that though. We watched my maternal grandmother fight as hard as she could for extra time, but the chemo made her so sick, and I believe she was gone within a year of her breast cancer coming back (it had been in remission for six years I believe). My paternal grandfather went through treatment for his cancer and lived two and a half years and got to squeeze a lot into that time.

We will trudge forward in our new normal and pray my father has some quality time left, however long that may be.