Hero

"I'm not afraid of dying, Jer. I just don't want to leave you guys behind."

My father said that to me on the phone about two months ago, when he was first diagnosed with cancer. I immediately told him not to think like that ... he had a very treatable form of cancer, he had caught it very early, and the doctors were on top of it. Nothing could go wrong. I said that I knew he was going through a really hard time, being trapped in the house alone all day with thoughts like that, but he didn't have to worry. He was going to be around a long while yet.

My dad seemed to calm down a little bit after that. The next week the doctors found that his cancer hadn't spread- by March they had scheduled his surgery. This Thursday they'll be removing it from his body, hopefully for good, during a routine operation being performed by one of the best surgeons in Philadelphia.

It was a cold, rainy night when I had that conversation with him. At first what he said took me aback. I didn't know how to respond. This was my father ... the man I've spent my entire life trying to be, trying to make proud of me. He would always be around, wouldn't he? He'd watch my brother and I graduate from college. He would help us move into our first houses, see us get our first jobs. He would be standing ten feet away when we both eventually married. He'd be in the waiting room or on the phone when our children were born, hanging on the news that he was a grandfather and probably wishing he hadn't quit smoking back in his 30's.

Later that night, laying in bed, I cried over the conversation we'd had. Until it actually comes to stare you in the face and the possibility becomes real, I suppose many of us don't think about the mortality of our parents. Most of us have already lost an older member of our family. Those of us who haven't can probably at least attest to watching someone grow into an older, frailer form of themselves as the years have gone by. But your parents ... well, they're your parents. At least to me. Where would they ever go?

I'm going home this Thursday to be with them when the surgery happens. It's a routine operation. The only possibility of complications comes from my dad's tendency to bleed fairly heavily (a fact which I told the doctor could probably be attributed to his intense gin drinking). My dad will be recovering by Thursday night and back to his regular self by mid May or so at the latest. He'll be sitting in the bleachers of Goodman Stadium as I graduate in a little over a month. I'll hug him when we take family pictures after the ceremony. And for now, there'll be no more need to think of when he won't be there.

Someday, nearly all of us will eventually see the passing of our families before our eyes. The parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and others you grew up with, and who had such an impact on your life, will be gone from this world. The most important thing you can do, in my mind, is make sure you let them know you love them even if they already know, in whatever way your family shows that kind of thing.

I love my dad. I'm who I am and where I am today because of everything he's done and sacrificed in the last 22 years. In my eyes, there is no greater man on this earth, and making him proud has been my foremost goal throughout the entirety of the last decade. I'm happy that he's going to be around for a long time yet ... and now, I think I'm starting to understand that it will be okay if a long time doesn't mean forever. I'll miss him-

the man who taught me how to play catch even though I was never any good at sports

the man who sat through too many high school football games so that he could see me conduct the marching band as many times as he could

the man who, despite not understanding jazz, could tell that our trombones were so much better than our trumpets year after year

the man who drove me to and from every Cadets audition, practice, and rehearsal the entire season

the man who worked 15 hours a day so that my family could live well

and now, the man who makes up cookies every single time we come home, and times it so that they're still warm when we walk in

I'll miss him when he's gone. We all will. But I'm sure he knows we love him, and that we'll take care of each other. If I had to pick one thing to tell him that maybe he didn't know, it'd be the same thing he's told me so many times. I want to make sure he knows that, someday, I hope my children can look at me the same way I look at him. That they can know the things I do are for them. That I'm proud of them. Quite simply, I want to make sure my dad knows he's done a great job ... and that if I could live up to be anyone in the world, it would be him.

Anyway, thanks for reading this one, if you did ... it means a lot to me.

Happy Sunday, everybody.