A few days ago I turned 20. And on that inconsequential day, I firmly resolved to put my adolescence behind me. I knew this would require a change in mindset before anything else. It would mean, among other things, getting up when fallen. And standing even when beaten.

Yesterday, I said goodbye to the little brother. The night before we’d argued like it was any other day, the same bitter flame of irritation flaring in both our eyes. At that moment, it was real, and his leaving was still something not yet faced.
Even now, I haven’t yet had to face his absence, his silence being partially cloaked by the cousin’s presence.

What followed was a night of hell, familiar in its mundane pounding.

The next morning, after having gotten under 10 hours of sleep in the last two days, I accompanied my parents to the hospital. My uncle drove, because I still don’t have my G2.

The news wasn’t surprising; my father has cancer.

It was like a scene out of a movie. And still life grinds on, in its routine, heart-breaking way.
Still I watch, as much an outsider as ever. As stung by the routine ugliness as ever. And nothing changes, really.

He’s due for a CT scan, and then surgery. Only after the surgery will we know if the cancer has spread. His older brother, the one who gave me peanuts so many years ago, who looked just like him, died of cancer when I was in elementary school.

Meanwhile, my parents want to move back to Toronto, to return to the old neighbourhood, from which I’d thought myself freed, finally. I swallow my dread, because this can’t be about me, not now. And yet, the prison walls draw ever closer and there’s nothing I can do about anything, being bound by debilitating guilt.