Paul's Heart

What You Did Not Know

A friend of mine recently spent some time visiting England with his wife and daughter.  It was a really wonderful trip from all of the pictures that he shared.  But I noticed something that originally made me sad.  Yes, there were some selfies of him, but the majority of the photos were of his wife and daughter.    I complimented him on the photos, and that it looked like a good time was being had.  But I also made the suggestion, “make sure you get some photos there with your daughter so that she has those memories as well.”  He indicated that his wife had taken many photos of him with his daughter, just had not gotten around to posting them.  I felt a huge relief for my friend, for what I feared would only end up a trip with nothing to remember anything by.

This year marks the fifth year that my father passed away.  It was back during the days preparing for his memorial, and going through numerous photos, that I realized, there were not many of not just my father and I, not of my mother and I either.  There were plenty of photos of each of them, a lot of photos of me, and even our pets, house, and various relatives.  But rarely any photos of parent(s) and child.

The truth is, it only came natural to me, to take so many photos of my daughters and me together (as well as the thousands of them).  But not until my father’s passing did I understand just how important they would be.

The relationship between my father and I was distant, as a result of divorce.  My mother, a working mom, also had very little time for recreation.  And that meant, very few photos.  But there were photos, even if only some.  And they had a story to tell.

I came across the movie Kodachrome yesterday.  Of course I am dating myself with the reference as Kodachrome is a photograph product that has gone by the wayside, just as 8-tracks and vinyl did for the music industry.  In the movie, the father and son are estranged, until a nurse locates the son, to inform him that his father is dying.  A world renowned photographer, he has one wish.  There is only one Kodachrome developing shop left in the country, and it is closing forever in just days.  He has four rolls of 35mm film that he wants developed before he dies.  The movie progresses like the typical road trip/mend fences journey, potholes along the way.  Everywhere they go, they run into people who have seen the father’s work over the years.  But without spoiling the movie, the film does get dropped off in time before the father passes.  And then we find out just how important those remaining rolls of film were.

Growing up, we are usually too busy experiencing to worry about remembering.  And in retrospect, we hope that our parents did take enough photos.  Unless, sadly, we find out, that there are not many, or enough, at least for the story that we want to remember.

Here are the only three photos I have of my father with me as a child.  And nearly as many as an adult.

It was instinctual that I have taken so many photos of my daughters over the years.

And I plan to take many more.

It is just, like my friend who traveled to England, we are both long term cancer survivors of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.  Our children were either too young, or not even born yet, when we faced this cancer.  But our children know all too well the serious health challenges that we face today, because of the late developing side effects from our treatments.  We know all too well, the odds that are against us, which only drives us harder to make sure that we create, and save as many memories that we can, for our children to look back on, remember, and smile.  Our lives have not gone as we thought or hoped that they would, but you know what, we are doing well with what we have, and what we can.

I cannot speak for my friend, but I know that my doctors have told me, they want to keep me around to someday be called a grandfather.  Well, that is some time away.  And until then, I am going to keep making memories, and saving them.

If You Would Have Told Me

Each year, I write a chapter for a book called “Visible Ink,” published through Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.  The following is this year’s chapter, my 7th published effort with MSKCC.

If You Would Have Told Me

Paul Edelman

            Of all the side effects that were going to affect my life as a cancer survivor, the inability to have biological children of my own, was the hardest to accept.  If I refused treatment, in particular, the drug that could cause my sterility, I would risk achieving remission, or worse, die.

            If you would have told me, that in spite of choosing treatment, that my life would be blessed not once, but twice, by travelling around the world to bring into my life through adoption, two beautiful daughters…

If you would have told me, back as a 22-year old, just diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, that I would have someone standing in front of me, asking for my daughter’s hand in marriage, because I am a traditional father and my daughter deserves that respect, …

            If you would have told me, when I had completed treatments and was declared in remission, that I would be playing a role in planning my daughter’s wedding, …

            If you would have told me, nearly twenty years later, as I lay on a surgical table, about to undergo emergency heart surgery due to late developing damage from my cancer treatments, that I would be standing in the back of the church, just staring in awe at my daughter, beautiful and dressed in white, as she began the next stage of her life, …

            If you would have told me, five years after that, as I was being rolled out of my home, at 3am on an ambulance gurney, dying from a full blown case of septic pneumonia, another late developing result of my cancer history treatments, that I would be walking my child, my daughter, now a woman, down the aisle to someone else who was going to be entrusted with taking care of her, …

            If you had told me that after everything else that I had experienced due to late effects of my cancer treatments, that I would have no choice, when asked, “who gives this woman to be married?”, my daughter would be counting on me to answer, “her mother and I do.”  At that moment, you would think that going through cancer and all of my other experiences would have been the hardest thing I have done.  Wrong!  I did not want to let go.  Reluctantly, but not begrudgingly, I responded “her mother and I do.”

            If you had told me that as the decades of my survivorship passed, that I would be able to dance the special father/daughter dance, I would tell you, time is not kind to the mind of a cancer survivor wondering, “how much longer will it last?”  Yet here I am, a microphone in my hand, dancing with my daughter to a song that I not only picked out for her, but will sing to her, a lullaby that comforted her to sleep as I rocked her and sang to her, “Turn Around”.

            If you would have told me, that I would be holding my first grandchild, me undecided about what I wanted to be called, “pop-pop”, “grandpa”, “poppy” or even a name my grandchild would just give me, I would have to tell you, that a long time ago, as I was introduced to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Survivorship Clinic, that is exactly what they told me would happen, that I would see this day.

            There is only one catch, none of this has not happened yet.    

            I do not know when this day will actually happen.  I have two daughters and I cannot wait to go through this twice.  I am only more than willing to do so.  My daughters are in their teenage years, still in school.  I know this emotional time for me will rapidly approach.  But on the calendar, I have plenty of time.  One thing is certain, I know that they want as much of a future with me, as I do with them.

            If you would have told me, when I was diagnosed thirty years ago with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma that I would even have a future, let alone, two of the most important people in my life, my daughters, and survive long enough, to see them get married, and have children of their own, I would have said “I will see those days.”  I have the right people behind me; doctors, nurses, my mother, my closest friends, and of course, my daughters.  With support like that, there is no doubt.

            I will have that chance, to sing “Turn Around” to my daughters one more time, but also as I rock their children in my arms, sing “turn around, and you’re two, turn around and you’re four.  Turn around and you’re a young child, going out of the door.”  And I will tell you, “I told you so.”