My Dad by Megan Parsons

[editor's note: this article was originally posted by Megan on November 22, 2008, however due to an apparent site error, it was deleted. It's been republished here, verbatim]

My dad asked me to write on here and not to hold anything back, so I’m gonna try to do just that.  Since I was a baby my time with my dad was limited to every other weekend and whichever day of the week we were decided on at the time. I didn’t think much of it then, because it was all I ever knew.  But now I feel that I was cheated. I think it’s not fair that most of my sisters’ friends got to spend more time with my dad then I did.  I love to just sit down with my sisters and listen to stories about him (most of which are extremely funny) but it hurts a lot to know just how much I missed out on.  Its amazing how many lives he has touched, and will continue to touch.  Reading all the comments on this site proves this.  My dad has taught me so much, to write it all on here would take a life time.  One thing is that you have to work for what you want, nothing in life comes free, but he also taught me that this is a good thing.  What is anything worth if it’s just handed to you? What do you have to show for it, to be proud of? This implies for everyone, but some people just choose to take the easy way out, but they will pay for it later.  He taught me the value of respect.  He has taught me many more without even saying a word to me.  His actions speak for him. Sure he has made mistakes, but he wouldn’t be human if he hadn’t.

I remember the day he told us about his disaease.  He told us that he wanted to get all of us together and tell us something. Jackie and I were talking, and we had noticed something wrog with his hand.  We just thought that he had to have surgery or something and was overreacting, we really weren’t that  worried.  He told me to go sit outside with the kids while he talked to my sisters.  When they were done I saw Jackie walk out of the house crying.  That was when I knew it was something more than just surgery.  He came outside and told me about it. I really didn’t understand much he said at all, but I cried a lot. Later that night I learned he talked to me separate because he told them more details. Probably, thought I was too young to hear everything. Even then I was very mature for my age, and my sisters knew it, so they told me more. I didn’t really understand much about it at all until his disease started to progress. I pretty much learned from seeing it happening. All the stuff on the Internet was a bunch of medical crap that’s impossible to understand. Still though, I always thought that they would get a call from the doctor, saying that they made a mistake, that a simple surgery was really all he needed and our life would go back to normal. But no one ever called, and he only got worse.

In the past two years I have grown up so much, learned so much. Everyone takese things for granted, and at one point or another, we will always regret it. You really never know what you have until its gone. I never really thought much about the little things until this happened, but now I would give anything in this world to just wrestle around with my dad, have him give me a hug without having to strain to get his arms around me. My sisters are much more lucky then they realize. They got to grow up with him there all the time. I’m also very lucky that me and my sisters have a good relationship, we never really fought at all, therefore we can be there for each other, for if there is ever a time we need each other, it’s now.

These past two years have gone by so fast. Time is slipping by so fast, and yet, there is so much left unsaid, left undone. It seems like yesterday my dad and me were on our way to Michigan. When he could still walk on his own, drive, stil l had his freedom. But now only a little over a year later, he is confined to a wheelchair, and pretty much dependent on other people. Even though he doesn’t complain much about it, I know it hurts him so much to depend on people. He was always independent, even as a child, and now its like his life has been stolen from him. Its so unfair. Nobody deserves something like this. It makes you question everything you believe in. You get so messed up and lose everything you though you had. You never think something like this would happen to you. You see all these things on the news or in the paper and you thing “Wow that sucks” but you never really put any thought into it. Really whats the difference between you and someone that dies, gets in a car crash, loses a family member, loses their house? They all have family, friends, pets, everything that you have, so why couldn’t it happen to you? I think everything happens for a reason, why this happened, I have no idea yet, but something will come out of it. Good? Bad? No one knows. But I do know that I have learned thtings because of it. I’ve learned not to take things for granted, learned to make the most out of life, for you never know when something might happen. Everyone dies, my dad just has some kind of idea when. But in the process he must suffer, which is too unfair to explain. Like I said, he has made mistakes, but no mistake is bad enough to deserve a life like he has now.

It’s kinda funny, how when you learn something exists, you see it everywhere. For example, before my dad got ALS, I’d never even so much as heard of it, but now it seems to come up everywhere, in the books I read, the tv shows I watch, even in school, the were reading a book about it called “Tuesdays with Morrie”. Even though I’m not taking the class they are reading it in, I read it as soon as I heard about it. It was a very good book, and I recommend it for anyone that knows my dad. Morrie is a college professor that learned he had ALS in August of 1994 (Kind of ironic huh? I was born in one month after, and dad also learned he had it in August of 2006) the book goes through a series of “lessons” that Morrie teaches a former student (author of the book) Mitch Albom. They always take place on Tuesdays, and Morrie teaches Mitch the lessons of life and love. I read this book in about a day. It was very sad, but somehow made me feel good. Let me know that even though this is a disease with no cure, positive things can come from it.

My father has always been the strongest person I know, and no matter how physically weak he may be, he will always be the strongest, best man I will ever know.