Happy Father’s Day from The Free Press! We’ve published a lot of great essays on fatherhood this weekend: P.G. Sittenfeld explained why, when he was staring down a prison sentence, he and his wife decided to try for another baby. Alex Berenson defended dads against the bad rep they usually get in the movies. And Liel Leibovitz celebrated the fact that “Toy Story 5,” released Friday, bucks the trend—filling our screens with positive messages about fathers.
Today, we’re bringing you something a little different. Six weeks ago, Casey Babb learned that his 80-year-old father had an aggressive brain tumor. Right now, his father may have only hours left to live. But in today’s essay, Casey writes not about fear, but about an “extraordinary gift: the opportunity to say goodbye.” —The Editors
In April of this year, when my mother called me in a panic to say the radiologist wasn’t letting her or my father leave the waiting room after his CT scan, I didn’t think much of it. Anything related to medicine—especially in Canada, where we live—frequently comes with delays. Maybe the doctor went on a lunch break, or a computer froze—or maybe she was taking her time going through the images she’d just taken of Dad’s brain.
I told my mom to relax. I told her to remember what a geriatrician had told us a few hours earlier: that my 80-year-old dad, who had been behaving abnormally the last few weeks, and who appeared to have some trouble with his vision, may have had a minor stroke that we hadn’t detected, or perhaps, dementia. No one wants to hear these things—but at least, I told her, the reason for the wait wasn’t going to be a catastrophic surprise.
I was wrong.
Moments later, my phone rang again. “Hi Casey,” my mom said. “The radiologist is here with me and Dad now, and she wanted us to get you on the line.” The doctor cut to the chase: She had found a large mass in my dad’s brain.
