Well it’s late Saturday night. Scott seems in full-fledged steroid mode. Eating and grazing most of the time he’s awake. He’s also in stride with Vincristine pain as well. For some reason it seems worse and appears to come on quicker with each cycle. One doesn’t know if it is due to cumulative effect, or if the quicker onset is partially psychological. It doesn’t really matter, as it is miserable for him either way.

Tomorrow (or right now actually, as it’s after 1 in the morning) is Father’s Day here in the US. It’s impossible to think what thoughts may be going through the boy’s minds tomorrow. It is bad enough that virtually every other advertisement on TV this week seem to be hawking a “Father’s Day” sale somewhere. When they come on, we just sort of wait and see if any of us are going to crack up and become an emotional mess. Well, not become one as we all are, but do so outwardly. It is going to be a very tough day for sure. I’m not sure any of us are remotely aware of how to handle tomorrow. I know I’m not.

I ache for Scott and Derry. I don’t know what to say to them. I don’t know if being upbeat is the right way to handle it or commiserating with them is proper. It is a question of rhetoric actually. There is no right or wrong answer to that question. We’ll just get though it in whatever way we manage.

Battling this disease as a family makes you feel isolated. Yes, we have family that have done very nice and generous things for us. All of that is appreciated to no end. But watching a child plow through a treatment schedule like Scott’s results in us four feeling as we’ve been put out on some sort of island, with a hurricane that never ends battering the place. That analogy isn’t “fixable” by anyone. It is just simple fact. No one can imagine the constant stress and worry, nor would I ever expect or want someone to be made to understand it all. It is a dire, mean lonely ordeal for the family.

And now the boys are just that much more lonely with their dad gone.

Father’s Day.

I can’t help but think they’ve been cheated in some manner. I do what I can to fill a gap. But I also understand a parent is a parent, and it is nothing that can be replaced in that sense.

So today my wife and boys all have to deal with Father’s Day for the first time since their father’s have passed away. The latest squall in the storm.