My dad
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
By: colleen richardson

My dad

One of the few times I ever saw my dad cry was when he told me that he was sick. It was the weekend before I started grade 12 and I was going on about some nonsense regarding lockers, and then he said it. I guess that's all he was thinking about and just needed to tell me, I mean there really is no good way of telling someone you love that you're sick, really sick. I'll never forget the look on his face. Anger, confusion, sadness, and fear. Why did this have to happen to him? He didn't deserve this. That's all I kept thinking, "why?"
My dad was my everything and I looked up to him in every way. He was always supportive of me, helped me with my homework, and comforted me when I needed it; he had a way with words not many people do, he always knew what to say. He was understanding and honest. He taught me almost everything I know and a lot of my favorite memories are with him, or involve him in some way. He was a father.
In early October my dad was hospitalized, after that he never returned home. He was hardly even allowed to leave the hospital and because it was getting colder out, we couldn't take him outside to the courtyards. Luckily, the hospital was really close to my school, so I could walk over every day, and unless I needed a computer to do my homework, I would stay until I was told (or had to) leave. If the time I had left with my dad was going to be short, then I wanted to spend as much time with him as I could.
After he was hospitalized things seemed to moving fast. There were conversations about what will happen after, my house was up for sale and my dad was getting progressively worse. He was a man who was over six feet tall, used to weigh probably around 300 lbs, a football quarterback and now he was severely underweight and by the end, so sick he could hardly move; so vulnerable and helpless, and not a single sign of improvement. So my aunt decided to try and get him into a hospice for his remaining time. The best one she found had a waiting list of over 40, but she put him on anyways, why not right? And then on November, 23rd (my birthday, go figure) by some miracle, the hospice allowed for my dad to be admitted. It really was a miracle. The hospice was incredible; warm and homey, and my dad loved it, which is all the mattered.
My dad passed away five days later on November 28th. It seemed really sudden, but at the same time, almost perfect timing. He stayed alive long enough to see me turn 17, two of his best friends who lived a few hours away were visiting, along with a lot of my cousins and my aunts. I think at that moment he was finally content and happy, and he no longer felt to need to hold on. And in typical Bernard fashion, his last words were some sort of joke or sarcastic comment, which, I can't quite remember.
It's impossible to know what it's like to see someone you love go through cancer, unless you know firsthand. Seeing someone you love and care about so much, in pain we can't even comprehend, and in some cases, literally watching a loved one die slowly, knowing all you can do is try and be supportive, be there for them and say it will be okay. But on the inside, you're dying to. Before this, I never understood how painful and heartbreaking it was to lose someone so close and I now have so much more respect for my aunts, my cousins and friends who have been through grief. What helps get through it though, is knowing that they aren't suffering anymore, and remembering that person for all the good they've done, keeps them alive in our hearts and no person or illness can take that away.
r.i.p
Bernard Richardson
November, 28th, 2009