Seasons change

Late September kind of sucks for me.

Two dates come up on the calendar that get to me, no matter how I work to get past them. I lost my brother and my dad in late September. Both died after battles with cancer - my brother lost his within a year, but my dad, well he wasn't going to let something as meaningless as a disease get him. He fought back hard - winning round one (throat) and taking a technical decision on round two (esophagus) before being taken by the failure of some other important parts of his body.

I was very close to my brother. Not so much with my dad.

Interestingly, I've come to be more and more like the latter than the former.

Life is unpredictable that way.

When my dad got sick, we both tried, but we still never bridged the gap between us. Our differences remained as strong as ever. I couldn't see him as a sympathetic character in this play...he refused to let his mortality soften his opinion of the world. It's ironic that we both agreed on the fact that neither of us wanted for me to follow his unique path through life.

After he was gone, I felt that I'd let him down. Let the whole family down! It was as if I watched the whole thing on a movie screen, helpless in my seat. Then when the credits rolled, I walked away thinking I would have written it better.

Ten years later my brother got sick. Though he and I were very different in many ways, we were always close and had a great relationship. When he needed me to come visit him in the middle of the Northern Ontario bush, I was there. When he had to come to Toronto for treatments at Sunnybrook, I was there. When he was struggling through his last days, his mind tortured by the pain and the morphine...I was there.

Then he was gone too.

My sister and I live just miles away from each other here in Kingston. My brother's oldest lives even closer. We all have busy lives, and socialize much less than we could. For a while we tried all getting together for a big fun party in late September every year. I guess they thought it would be a great way to make me feel better. Control-freak therapy to get me over the fact that I feel like I was no help when these two guys needed all they could get.

Mid-month I always get out and do the Terry Fox Run. It feels great being a part of something that will eventually help bring an end to the suffering that cancer brings. For a day or two, I feel pretty good.

But late September...well that always sucks for me.