The Dead PC

Thank goodness for Sugar Sync - I'd have lost all the files I was working on if I hadn't of had this little programme working away in the background.


I realised tonight that I was out trying to reach something I can't have.  My youth.  I'd actually like my knowledge and my youth together but I can't have those.  I see things a lot differently and seeing my dad being in denial (not the river in Egypt) but also seeing the issues he is having with knowing exactly what is wrong with him, what is coming down the road and fully realising that he can't do even the simplest tasks now because he gets out of breath then I begin to realise just how lucky I am that I'm no longer in that position.


The cancer is wrecking his body but his mind is still just as sharp and informed as it ever was.  I realise too that we've never had anything other than a working relationship between us.  I mean that nicely, we aren't prone to emotional hugs, kisses and all that, never have been.  I'm very much like him and it's not a way of communicating I feel comfortable with at all.  I may pat you on the shoulder but it is highly unlikely you'd ever get a hug off of me.  It's just not something we have ever done.  I find it almost embarrassing when meeting close friends and kissing - again - very rarely done in the family.  


I don't feel close enough to my dad to have much more of an acquittance's conversation, almost a work mate rather than a father son (as depicted in film and novel available from all good outlets).  Don't get me wrong, I've no reason at all to dislike my dad or anything like that.  It is just that the relationship may well be one that involves the sorts of personalities we are.  I'd hazard a good guess, in fact I'd probably lay money on it, that he and I are both Myers Briggs INTJs which explains a hell of a lot about why we would both find it difficult and uncomfortable to talk on any level except the pragmatic and we do that fine.  I've never really had to take "a problem" to my dad, preferring (by far) going to talk to my mum who I have the most open and honest discussions.  Relationships are strange things indeed and I see it with my own children and their different personality types.  In fact, what surprises me is that they seem to be reversing the types I originally gave them.  A, who was always the quiet one, is far more fiercely independent and a very strong character whereas L, whom I thought had the outgoing personality and attitude has, this first year at University, retreated into her shell a bit.


Such are the nature of relationships and I am sure that whilst I will beat up on myself about the "professional nature" of the relationship I have with my dad, I can't imagine he or I are in a position to be comfortable to change it.  Intuitively we know that there is a lot of respect for each other and I have no issues to raise with him now.  Whatever I may or may not feel about  the past is the past and so cannot be changed so why worry about it?


Mum reminded me that it is now 9 months (give or take) since dad first went into hospital.  I don't know where that time went to and whilst it is nice that he is still here, I wonder sometimes how this knowledge of his terminal illness plays with his head.  He isn't stupid and I can only begin to guess, given my brief knowledge of the subject, what it must feel like.