Tunnel Vision

My mind went blank, the room turned fuzzy, nothing made sense, it was as if there was a spinning sensation…I needed to get off, I was getting dizzy…I had to stop it. I needed to think, I needed to breath. There had to be something. The hope. I needed hope. Where was the hope, yes, hope, I could hold onto, hope I could see, and hope that I could cling to for the rest of my life…where was it when I needed it?

The first thing that came back into focus was her: hunched over in the corner of the office, playing with a germ infested toy. Her faded blue jeans, bright pink t shirt and messy brown hair. It couldn’t be true. It just wasn’t happening. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. There wasn’t any way I was going to believe it. There had to be hope. He was the next object to come into view.

Leaning back in his chair, glasses falling off his nose, white over coat, his day planner laid out on his desk, holding the plans to the rest of his life. His pen was sitting on his lip, and he stared in my direction as if waiting. For me. Im sure I wasn’t the first, or the last, person he had to tell the news to. He wasn’t very good. He laid it out, blunt with full force, and waited, to see what I would do. While I waited…to see what he would say. He was the doctor, why couldn’t he fix it, do something, change things, do it over again…and suddenly, my disbelief, turned to anger. A hot passionate anger that made me want to pick up the bundle of energy in the corner and run: far away. To some safe place. Somewhere where nothing could hurt her, and all would be well…

It was his fault. He was the one. His day planner. His dinner plans. His life laid out before him, it sat next to her file. The one that read: Brain tumor. The one that held my destination. Lay there, mingled with his life, and who knows how many other peoples. It was his job. To break the news to people. To tell them their children, the ones that they were suppose to protect, and keep from harms way, were going to die. In more or less words. I hated him. With everything in me, I hated him.

After discussing things with him, in further detail, I took her hand, and walked out of the room. I was numb. I was floating. I was there in body, but I wasn’t there. I noticed the family in the waiting room. I saw the other kids playing, and I saw her, staring at them as well. Having no idea what her future held, but know that with her hand in mine, she would be safe: safe from all the dangers in the world. Safe from anything that came her way, I could protect her, I was her father. Her daddy. She was my little girl, it was my job…and I was failing. I was messing up the one thing that I felt I knew how to do. I wasn’t doing, my job.

I was worse off than the man in the white suit, who mixed his life in with ours. He atleast, was doing his job, and doing it well. I. Was not. I was slowly loosing the grips to the reins I had known. The bottom of my world was beginning to crack, and my daughter was slowly slipping out of my grip…and there was nothing. Not one thing. That I could do to stop it. I was a failure. To the one person who trusted me more than anything in the world. The one person who cried my name, and ran to me for protection…and I was letting her down.

It was the second to the worse day in my life.

Hearing the news was almost as bad as living it out. Just as he had said.

One month to the day after her surgery, and I sat there, holding her hand, yelling for her not to leave, knowing that there wasn’t anything I could physically do to save her, or help her.

Knowing that she was taking her last breaths, but not wanting to believe, because while it put her out of her pain, it had put a start to mine. I was selfish like that. Not wanting her to go. Wanting her to stay. Wanting to be able to save her. Wanting what I couldn’t have.

I spent close to an hour with her, after she was gone. After her final breaths were taken, and the first of many tears were shed. Watching her change, knowing that she wasn’t there, but wishing, that there was some way it was all a mistake…that she would come back, that she would breath, and smile, and laugh, and be…herself again. Just once more. For a little while. I was sure, if she stayed a moment longer, I could save her. I could hold her tighter, love her more, and cure her illness. Take it away, and give her the life that she deserved…

Four ½ years later…four and ½ years, to the day.

It doesn’t seem right. It still doesn’t seem real. There are still times I wish, and wonder, and THINK that shes still there, that I “Lost” her somewhere, that I didn’t leave her in that hospital bed. That maybe I forgot her, or she ran away, or there was some mistake, that maybe…she really isn’t gone. I play tricks on myself, If I close my eyes hard ENOUGH she MIGHT come back. Im just not trying hard enough, not wanting it bad enough, I didn’t love her enough, I didn’t want her enough, I didn’t care for her good enough…

I failed her. I gave up. I walked away. I yelled too much. I drank too much. I wasn’t there enough. I didn’t give her all she needed. I wasn’t…the father she needed.

…and while I cant go back, and I cant undo things, I can go forward, and I can beat myself up every single day, for not being a better father to the little girl who deserved so much much more, than me.

Four and ½ Fucking years later, I can still remember her, on the 11th of each month, and KNOW what happened. I can still remember her, and I can still be upset about things. I can still hate that doctor, and I can still wish with everything in me, that it is some mistake. That tomorrow when I open the front door, with the sun streaming in, she will be standing there, smiling, and we can pick up where we left off.

But Im forced to put these thoughts away, pack them up, and send them to the furthest corners of my mind, if I don’t want to be held back, and grieve for the moments I could have had…should have done…and the person I MIGHT have become…because I refused to let my daughters memory, fade.

One day, maybe. But not today.