Marta's+Memoir

=**I'm Grateful for the Pain**= by Marta

When I was seven my dad died. The date was September 16th, 2007. He had been struggling with stomach cancer for about five years, and ended up having to get his stomach removed, resulting in him having to eat through a tube. I can barely remember a time he didn’t have tubes sticking out of his flesh; the fluid they conveyed didn’t work very well and usually they did more harm than help. They made him lose his hair, hallucinate, and overall made him not himself.

One night I was sitting on my patterned white bedsheets in my room, a grey notepad sitting on my lap, and a pencil lazily laying between my thumb and fingers. I had just figured out how to spell a complicated word and I remember feeling so proud of myself. I was so happy. Then my door opened, I looked up from my notepad, and there he was standing, pale as a ghost. His eyes were dead and glazed over and I was terrified. Of my own father! Well, not my father, that wasn’t him completely. But of what was happening to him. In that moment I realized that he really wasn’t going to be okay; I already knew this but this finalized it. He had brought something that I had left in the living room to me, and he dropped it onto the hardwood floor that met the bottom of the doorway. My mom came into the picture as she walked up behind him and guided him away, closing the door. He died three days later.

It was late at night when it happened, it was just like every other night. I was sleeping in my parents’ bed, a habit I picked up as my father’s pain progressed. My parents were sitting three rooms away, watching TV, and I was completely unaware of what was happening. But my body knew. My brain knew. I just wouldn’t accept it, and I guess that’s why I didn’t realize that something was wrong. I had the plaid green and blue duvet pulled up to my chin, and I dreamed. Well, I think it was a dream; I’m not sure if I actually saw it or not. I dreamed that my great uncle, a priest, and multiple other people were in beige dress; in addition, my uncle was wearing gold as well. They were all crowded around a stretcher, and there was a white sheet draped over it; I wasn't really paying attention to the stretcher, though. I was trying to make sense of the scene playing out in front of me. Then my mom was there, crying, pain and a million other emotions displayed across her features. She looked like she was crumbling, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Later that night she came into the room, turned on the small lamp that was sitting on the wooden bedside table next to me, and woke me up. I can't remember if she was crying or not as I rolled over, trying to wake up. Everything looked so dull, illuminated with a quiet yellow, she was clutching my hand, running her free hand across my hair. "Daddy. . .daddy's dead." And she was gone. Just three simple words and my life changed.

It could never go back; God how wish I could just hug him one last time, finally say goodbye. I didn't cry at first. I fooled myself, “It's all just another horrible dream. He's not dead.” But then I remembered the events that happened three days earlier, and all the similar things that had been happening recently. It occurred to me that maybe my dream about my uncle wasn't a dream at all. And, finally,I cried. All I remember was how blurry my vision was, and how the walls seemed to cluster close around me, then nothing. I can't remember anything from the year after that, it's just a huge blank spot in my life.

Even though it made my life hell for a long time, and it still does occasionally, I wouldn’t change the fact that he died. Yes, I miss him and love him, but if that hadn't have happened I wouldn’t be who I am today. Sure, there are sometimes when I truly hate myself, but recently I’ve been able to like myself just a bit more again. If his death hadn’t occured in my life at that time, I wouldn’t be able to understand other people’s side of things. I might not have gotten as depressed as I did, and that would probably result in me not caring as much as I do about other people’s pain; I wouldn’t have known how terrifying and horrible it can get. Maybe I would still have some of my qualities, but I would have a different mindset, I wouldn’t have the friends I do today, I wouldn’t have met so many of the people I love, and overall, I wouldn’t be me.

All in all, I am grateful for all the hardships, pain, and suffering that I have endured, because along with it has come times that I will never forget — people I will never forget. I’m happy I’ve gone through these things because knowing both pain and joy means that I am alive. I am still alive and fighting, and that’s one of the best things I could ever ask for.


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