My dad and I have never had much of a relationship. Though I was born here in Portland, my mom left my dad and took me and my brother, Shawn, to Baltimore when I was 3. Shawn and I would see my dad a couple times a year until I was 15, when we moved back to Portland to live with my dad while my mom was going through some rough times. Though Shawn only stayed for a year before moving back to Baltimore, I ended up building my life here in the Portland area. It’s a great place with great people - I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

I don’t have any regrets about staying in Portland, even though Shawn moved back to Baltimore. I know Portland; I can trust people here and walk down the street without feeling like I could get jumped at any minute. I don’t have that same sense of security in Baltimore.

My dad is my only blood relative in Portland. Even though we spent a couple Christmases with Debbie’s family (Debbie is my dad’s fiance), the few holidays we spent together still felt like they were missing something. However, I found a life and a family here in Portland when Christina and her family helped fill the void for the family I left behind in Baltimore.

I still miss my Baltimoron family, though. It was an awesome treat to go back there 2 years ago for Christmas and shock the hell out of everybody (the only one who knew we were coming was my grandma). I really wish I could see my mom, Shawn, and everybody else more often.

Despite my longing for my family, I haven’t had much of a reason to want to see my dad. He’s the only one who lives within reasonable driving distance, yet I had’t seen him in almost a year. That was until last Sunday - Father’s Day.

I normally wouldn’t have gone over to see my dad simply because it was Father’s Day; indeed, this day was no different. I didn’t go see him because of a greeting-card holiday - I went to see him because he was very sick from his chemo treatment. My dad has liver cancer.

I just found out about the cancer a few weeks ago. Apparently he had anal cancer (which I didn’t even know existed) last autumn. Via chemo, he was able to overcome that; but about a month or so ago, he was officially diagnosed with liver cancer. He said that his doctors told him the anal cancer could’ve spread to his liver, but I’m inclined to believe that it was the other way around.

Almost a year had gone by since we last spoke, which was at the wedding last year. The thing about my dad is that he’s a stubborn rambler; he repeats himself over and over and bloody over again. It’s almost as if he has no recollection of anything he’s just said, but I suppose being an alcoholic most of your life would do that to you. A combination of his alcoholism, inappropriate drug use, and inability to listen to anyone but himself is what eventually drove us to the state we’re in now. We’ve lost what we never really had in common anyway.

That’s not to say my dad hasn’t tried to do good things. When Shawn and I were little, he bought us our Nintendo Entertainment System; a few years later, he bought a Panasonic 3DO (for $500, brand new) to use while visiting him during the summer; he took us all over the city to parks, fountains, and Saturday Market; and, most importantly, he introduced me to Portland.

Now that my dad’s terminally ill, I find myself at somewhat of a loss; I don’t really know how to feel. On one hand, he’s an asshole; on the other, I know he used to be a good person. Either way, I feel like he’s not taking the cancer seriously enough; he’s still drinking and smoking. One really couldn’t be much dumber.

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Easier said than done, Gandalf.