I was standing in the kitchen making pancakes for breakfast, Erin’s favourite. It was a Sunday morning. It had rained through the night but the clouds had passed by leaving a miraculous glow over the horizon as the sun came up and I looked out of the window onto the skyline of Edinburgh. Erin was playing with one of her new toys that Emma had given her the day before, a puzzle book from the Disney Film ’Frozen’. “I was flying last night mummy.”
Erin had always been good at remembering her dreams just like me, or rather, like me back when I started remembering dreams when Peter and I had met in them. A sort of talent I had kept ever since. Peter had, what I like to call, ’normal’ sleeping patterns where he sometimes remembered his dreams but most of the time he would forget them. My mum and I had talked about it since then and she had reminded me that I in fact was just like Erin as a child. She even told me that I had apparently scared her at times by telling her that I saw things or heard things that weren’t there, but it had faded and stopped all together before I had started school. I had little memory of this but one memory stood out. I remembered overhearing my mum talking to dad about me, she seemed very upset and worried at the time. I can’t remember what she had said but I think it was then that I had made a decision to ignore what I saw or heard. I got the feeling that it wasn’t ‘normal’ to other people. It scared me a little and made me think that there was possibly something wrong with me. The sounds and visions that I saw had faded not long after that. I remembered feeling happy as a young child though. Never alone somehow. Even when no one else was there. I could always sense a sort of loving presence. It was a shame that I pushed it away. With Erin I listened and never appeared worried or scared, although sometimes that was a difficult task, like when she told me about a nightmare for instance. In those situations I would simply comfort her. It was hard knowing that there was nothing more that I could do about it. My heart hurt every time that happened. Most of the time however, she had pleasant dreams and woke up happy.
I looked over at Erin knowing how wonderful flying dreams could be and replied to her statement about her flying dream.
“You did? Wow, did it feel good to fly?” I asked. “It felt amazing. I was flying really high up this time. Granddad was there too. He waved to me.” “He did? That’s nice. Was he flying too?” I asked as I put the first pancake on a plate and handed it to her.
“No, but he looked really happy,” she said with a smile.
“We’ll have to put this away now sweetie,” I said as I removed her puzzle book from the table. Peter walked in as Erin took a heaped spoon of jam and added it to her plate.
“Pancakes!” he announced in delight. They were one of his favourites as well.
“You’ll see Granddad today after lunch, you can tell him that you dreamt of him. He would like that," I said looking over at Erin and then to Peter who was looking at me with a smile. It still made me melt every time he looked at me like that. He made me feel like a lovesick teenager every time. I giggled and looked back at the frying pan, making sure I didn’t burn the pancakes.
I thought of the dream that I’d had and made a conclusion that it had to have been fear based. I was terrified to loose what I had. It was so perfect. I had fallen back asleep quickly after I had woken up from the nightmare the night before and I couldn’t recall having had any more dreams after that so I felt pretty well rested and the worry of it had faded.
It was two o’clock as we got in the car and drove off to mum and dad’s house which took about half an hour or so depending on the traffic. Peter drove the car, a black Audi that Peter had through his job as a car technician. He designed new fun technical toys - as I liked to call them - for Audi. He enjoyed his job very much and it was fun listening to his passion for it when he came home in the evenings.
Erin and I talked about another dream she’d had as we drove through the city centre of Edinburgh. She had been in a forest talking to giant dirty trolls that had tried to pick her up as if she was a little doll. She hadn’t been afraid but it had annoyed her so she had bitten one of them in the arm, which apparently tasted disgusting, so that he would let go off her. That had made the troll let go and she had jumped onto a tiger that she had tamed in an earlier dream. The tiger had run off with Erin on his back, saving her from the giant trolls. I absolutely loved hearing her talk about her dreams. She had an amazing imagination. She would sometimes zone out because she was so into a story in her head that it was hard to break her concentration. A couple of people had mentioned she might have a form of ADD or ADHD because of that and also because she could be a bit hyper at times but I was so proud of her. She was perfect just the way she was. Diagnosis were often ways of society telling you that you weren’t socially skilled enough, when in fact you were very smart in other non-academic ways with a creative mind that worked in a million other amazing ways. Diagnosis were, in my mind, ways of proving that society was too square and I was also pretty sure that the governments weren’t too pleased with people they couldn’t control either for that matter. I could sit for hours talking to my friends about these things. In my eyes Erin was diagnosed with perfection.
Erin was first to the door when we arrived, jumping up and down with her long dark curly hair bouncing down over her little denim jacket and throwing off shine as the sun hit it.
My mum opened the door wearing a flowery dress over her slim body. She knelt down with her arms wide open and gave Erin a big long hug. Erin then headed into the hallway and started taking off her shoes as mum looked up at me. Her eyes looked sad, like they had at the birthday party, only now it showed more.
“Mum, are you ok?” I asked, feeling a knot in my belly.
She nodded her head but looked down making me even more worried.
“Mum, what is it? What’s happened? Is it Emma?” I said as I took a step towards her. Peter put his hand on my back as moral support. She looked up at me with a serious face.
“How about you just come in and I’ll tell you all about it over a cup of tea.”
I nodded my head whilst fearing the worst.
We walked into their big kitchen where Erin was sitting on my dad’s knee. He looked overjoyed seeing his granddaughter. She was looking at him with so much love and wonder in her eyes. “Erin darling!” my mum announced, “Emma is upstairs in her bedroom, why don’t you go on up and say hello. She mentioned that she needed her hair done and you are pretty good at that aren’t you?”
Erin’s eyes widened, she loved to play hairdresser. She hopped off my dad’s knee and skipped up the stairs towards my sister’s room.
My mum poured us some tea and put out some biscuits. My appetite was gone because of the bad news to come, whatever that may be. After a while my mum cleared her throat.
“I’m not sure how to say this so I’ll just come right out and say it.”
I was holding my breath without noticing. “Your father has cancer,” she said as she quickly looked down at the table and fiddled with her teacup.
It was quiet for a moment, I was taking in what she had just bluntly said. My dad had cancer? And with that statement came a whole bunch of other questions, but the first that came to mind was a question that clung to deniability. “What do you mean?” I said with big eyes, looking back and forth at my mum and dad. Peter had taken my hand but I almost found it annoying.
Him feeling sorry for me made it more real.
Dad was the first to speak.
“It’s nothing really dear, it’s a very common thing these days. I’ll be just fine,” he said with a smile and warm eyes, almost convincing me that it was more of a cold than a cancer.
“Oh please,” my mum said with tears in her eyes turning her head to him. “This is serious William.” She took a tissue wiping her eyes.
I was in shock, feeling slightly empty. What did this mean? My dad, my strong-always there for medad having a sickness that possibly wasn’t curable? That simply couldn’t be true. He looked so healthy, apart from his eyes, they looked a bit worn out. But apart from that he looked fine. He sat there looking the way my dad always looked. A cardigan over a shirt, a pair of denim trousers, short grey hair that had been thinning somewhat of late. A facial expression that read ‘hakuna matata’ and kind eyes…always kind eyes. If they ever turned anything else you knew you had done something really awful. It had only happened to me once thankfully, and I had been super naughty so I might have deserved the look of death that one time.
I had been quite good over all as a child but as most children you test your parents at one time or another simply to see where the boundaries are. I had tested them by running away with a couple of friends over night. I was only eight years old at the time. At eleven o’clock at night we had become bored and wandered home. My parents had called the police fearing the worse. My dad, having been worried sick, had been so angry with me that he barely spoke to me for a day after that. He just gave me a disappointing look. It had made me feel awful at the time. Having a child now myself I could understand why he would get so mad. One would be scared out of their mind. If anything ever happened to Erin I don’t know what I would do. We sat silent for a minute or so until my mum took a deep breath and started talking again.
“Your dad has small-cell lung cancer.”
I just stared at her as if she had just spoken another language. My mum held a tissue to her mouth.
“Ho…how did you find out?” I stuttered. “Well…you see…I have been coughing more than usual and…well…a little blood came out. Your mother made me go to the hospital.” He took my mothers hand and squeezed it gently with a warm smile her way. “But I’m sure it’s nothing that can’t be cured. These days they have all kinds of treatments for cancer. It’s pretty amazing what they can do actually. Besides, they were only guessing remember,” he said looking at my mum. “They need to do more tests to be sure.”
I looked at my father as he was talking about his illness as if it was nothing, but I could see in his eyes that he was putting on a brave face for us, and especially for my mum. I’m not sure how she could handle a life without him to be perfectly honest. “But lung cancer?” I said questionably. “You don’t smoke.”
“Well, it’s certainly been a while since I enjoyed a smoke.”
I frowned.
“A while? Did you use to smoke dad,” I asked. “When I was young, yes. We stopped round about when you were born.” “We?” I asked even more baffled.
“Your mother and I.”
“You both smoked,” I pointed to both of them back and forth. “Mum? Really?” It almost made me giggle, the thought of my mum-missis do right, smoking cigarettes. My emotions became confused with the giggling and brought a lump to my throat. “But dad, that was a lifetime ago, surely that can’t be the reason?”
“I don’t know sweetheart.” He stretched over the table putting his hands on top of mine. I looked up at him and felt tears wetting my eyes.
“Dad,” a tear escaped my eye. I tried to hide it by letting go of his hands and quickly wiping it away.
“Mummy, look,” Erin came running towards me with neatly braided hair. Emma was walking after her, her hair was in three messy pigtails with different coloured hairpieces.
“Wow, you look beautiful,” I said whilst Erin hopped onto my knee. “You too Em,” I said, slyly making fun of my little sister without having Erin notice it as not to hurt her feelings.
“Yes, I am a princess,” Emma said dramatically which made Erin laugh.
“Well, we should get going,” I said feeling the need to get out of the house and breathe fresh air.
Peter followed my cue and got up.
“Already? But mum,” Erin said with a frown. “Yes sweetie, we have some shopping to do. I’ll get you an ice cream. How does that sound?” I tried bribing her.
“I want to stay here.”
“We can visit grandma and granddad soon again,” I continued. “No we can’t,” she said.
The emotions of a five year old were adorable but also drove you to insanity at times. “Come on honey. You’ll see Grandma and
Granddad soon. I promise.”
Erin admitted defeat by hanging her head low. “Fine,” she said and stormed off towards the hall like a little teenager. Now, that was a time I was going to need to use mindfulness a lot I was guessing.
“Kirsty, William, let me know if there is anything I can do to help ok. We’ll call you later,” Peter said as he walked around the table giving them both a warm hug each and my dad got an extra handshake.
I got up and hugged my mum and dad. I had to bite my lip to strangle the crying. I didn’t want to alarm Erin or upset my mum and dad. Why did bad things happen to good people I wondered. My dad was too good for this world. He brought joy and kindness to everyone he met. Why him?