The man named Splash

In my last post I wrote something about being a skydiver’s daughter, and then I read a friend’s blog about beginning the grueling cycle of her father’s chemotherapy and radiation. This season marks the anniversary of my Dad’s battle of cancer. Since my brain is whirring I would like to take this time for a special moment in the en route chronicles.

I think it’s time I introduced you guys to my Dad.

Crisis has a litany of potentials that are, in my experience, often polarized in outcome and depend upon the person encountering the experience to decide which road they will let the crisis take them. A new road in my relationship with my dad started to August 2009 with three awful words, “Pull over sweetie.”

“Peanut butter . . . I have cancer. It’s in my neck, but the doctors don’t know where it started. If it’s esophageal it has a 80% mortality rate and if it’s anywhere else there’s a better chance everything will be fine.” [p.s. I don’t know what idiot gave him that percentage, but upon further research was determined to be WAY off]

30 minutes later I was driving down highway 17 and crying into the phone at my pitiful and unhelpful boyfriend at the time, “THIS IS THE PART WHERE YOU TELL ME IT’S ALL GOING TO BE OK!!”

I was in shock for about two days. While house-sitting, the sleeper wave of reality hit. I was dragged into the ocean of cancer for the second time in less than a year. To be honest, this was the part of the year when I started shaking my fist at God. Both parents? One year? Life is already difficult and heartbreaking at the moment. After I had my cry (over the course of a week or so) I was later conversing with the tattooed man while working the door at the Crepe Place. He asked me, “How can you believe in a God that would let bad things happen to the people you love?” My response: “Everything is upside down right now, it’s true, so how could I possibly turn my back on the only thing that’s going to get me through this?” And for once, I was right. I found God’s grace in the midst of more than I could have imagined.

I saw my Dad feed himself through a tube for months. We carried around a machine to suck out his saliva because it was too painful to swallow. I watched him get dehydrated and scare the living daylights out of me. I didn’t hear my dad’s sarcastic and strong voice for too long. He couldn’t even laugh. He cut the necks of his t-shirts open more so that they would not irritate the burns on his neck. We made cocktails of pain meds and codeine. He could not even intimidate my poorly matched boyfriend like a good Dad should. I couldn’t be there for half the time that I felt I should, and a part of me was glad, because I was terrified. But we made it through. And I’ve already used ‘I’ too much, this really isn’t about me. It’s about my Dad.

My Dad’s a tough guy. He grew up in Oklahoma and doesn’t talk too much about what it was like except for the funny stories that leave you wondering if you just laughed at abuse. My Dad jumps off of buildings, antennae, spans (bridges), and earth.

He’s the kind of guy that gets his kids almost every weekend for over 14 years despite the facts that they’re not always overly pleased to be there and can be royal pains in the ass, and of course I’m only referring to Hunter in this instance.

My Dad is the kind of guy that operates from a completely different moral barometer but still eventually pays for me to go to a private, Christian university. My Dad turned his life experience and three semesters of Junior college (that’s right Dad, I know) into a career that let’s him travel the world and do the things he loves (that is, once he quits or is fired from the boring career paths). If I had paid attention as a kid I might know how to build a house by now, but I also blame my Dad’s lack of adequate teaching skills. Sorry Dad, yelling helps not the sensitive female offspring. When I’m in Davis I still show off my favorite house that my Dad built. His work is always gorgeous and he puts in the coolest bathtubs.

At the beginning of the cancer I came home for a weekend just to hang out. We were sitting around the breakfast table talking about what we might do when my Dad asked me if I wanted to make my first jump. I had finally run out of excuses not to. He showed me a world that had enraptured him for over 26 years. The world is so much different when you’re flying. I finally understood what all the hype was about. We’d been looking at the earth from completely different perspectives for my whole life, and the view from his, in his own words, “didn’t suck.”

Because of his skydiving nickname I’ve been introducing myself as “Splash’s kid” for almost two decades now.

For being such a wise-ass, he has surprisingly loyal and long-lasting friends.

He challenges every part of my being and belief and it makes me stronger . . . eventually.

My Dad looks shockingly docile when you meet him after hearing my childhood stories.

He makes me laugh more than ANYONE and can get away with saying things like “batphone.”

My Dad sends me flowers EVERY year for my birthday, no matter where I am living.

My Dad still hasn’t entirely given up on some goofball members of my family.

If it weren’t for my Dad I wouldn’t appreciate sushi or all things “different.”

My Dad never stops learning and exploring.

He’s more popular on facebook than I ever was.

He has the BEST one liners and comebacks out of anyone I KNOW.

It’s not Christmas unless we’ve read “The Red Ranger from Mars.”

Reading with my Dad is one of my favorite childhood memories. He introduced me to poetry with Shel Silverstein and culture with old Native American Stories.

Despite what he might say he is a terrible arguer, especially in the heat of the moment, which he passed onto his daughter.

He has a thirst for life that most people only dream of.

He sent us to things like rock-climbing camp. Although sometimes those ventures lead to Hunter getting a not so bright idea, like the events that lead to him breaking both his arms. Sick as it is, it’s one of my favorite childhood stories.

Aside from being a Christian, acting like my Mother, or being a wuss . . . I can’t seem to do anything wrong in his eyes.

He encourages me to do things with my life, like SING.

Being a skydiver’s daughter provides excellent material for icebreakers and small talk.

My Dad has taught me that if you want relationship with people you may have to buck up and seek it out. It has proven to be a FANTASTIC lesson.

My Dad has also taught me to love people and be grateful for what they can give and not moan for that they are incapable of providing.

We used to fight all the time, but he never stopped loving me as best he could. We had a yearly tradition of fighting at Christmas over where Hunter and I would stay for Christmas because he always wanted us.

I have his temper (passion), but I also have his stubbornness and will to not let it control me. He never beat me, so good Lord knows that miracles are already possible.

My Dad has pet names for people like, “buttercup” “peanut” “buckethead” “poopoo head” [WHICH he almost let an old girlfriend put in my senior snapshot . . . !!] and many more that I can’t mention.

When I talk about his friends I have to use names like “Squirrel,” “D.O.B.,” “Kiwi Steve” and “Spanky.”

After some radiation and Chemo I asked my Dad what he wanted to do and he responded with, “I want to shoot some squirrels and smoke some POT . . . but not necessarily in that order.”

He gives me advice that no child expects to hear from their parent.

He’s uppity and intellectual without any credentials to prove it, but I didn’t know he could be wrong until quite late in life when I caught him using the word ‘paradigm’ incorrectly (which he still argues was not the case).

There are some things about my Dad that I should probably get therapy for, but there’s a whole lot more that has made me into the woman that I am proud to be. To have him say he’s proud of me, even if it’s just on facebook means more than you’ll ever know.

He gives everything he is capable of giving to his goofball kids.

Meet my Dad, so far it’s all ended up Ok.

And Dad, consider this your written birthday present. It’s just four months early. Love you.