The Day Cancer Gave Me Back My Dad

I still remember clinging to my dad’s leg at the airport, tears streaming down my face as I waited to board yet another flight back to New York. This was back when family could actually walk you to the gate which seems like a lifetime ago.

Those moments were gut-wrenching. I was so small, unable to process what was happening. What do you mean I only get to see you for one week and then I have to leave? Why do I have to watch you shrink through the airplane window as we taxi toward the runway?

I’d press my face against that cold glass, headphones in my ears, “Candy Rain” playing on my Walkman (yes, I’m dating myself here), watching him grow distant. My eyes still wet with a brokenness I couldn’t yet name.

The Long Road to Florida

The last time I’d been to Florida was the year before, for my Dad’s wedding. He’d asked me to be his best man. An honor that should have filled me with joy. Instead, it was another awkward dance of two people who should have known each other but didn’t. Like going for a high-five and accidentally slapping each other in the face.

Awkward. And painful.

Now here I was again, stepping into that familiar muggy Florida air, reaching for my phone to text his wife that I’d arrived. The anticipation of forced small talk during the car ride had already drained what little energy I had left after a sleepless night of travel.

When she pulled up in her red sedan, I forced a smile, or at least flexed those muscles. What actually showed on my face, I can’t be sure.

“Hey, thanks for picking me up,” I said, climbing into the passenger seat. Thankful, but not grateful.

“Of course. How was your flight?”

“Good.”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too. So, how are you doing? How’s Dad?”

And then I realized, in that moment, that I actually was glad to be there.

The Weight of Waiting

We spent the next twenty minutes talking about cancer. About the loneliness that sits on your chest at night. About waking up each morning hoping it was all a nightmare, only to see the pill bottles on the nightstand and remember that this is really happening.

We talked about how people struggle to handle what you’re going through. The generic condolences. The “I’m so sorry” or “It’s all going to be okay” or worse yet, “He’s so strong”—all while you can see the fear in their eyes. Not fear for what you’re experiencing, but fear of being in your shoes. So they offer their "sorry's" and try to move past their own discomfort.

After our conversation, we arrived at their house. I grabbed clean clothes and took a shower. It was early afternoon, and I still had work to do before Dad got home. I’d taken the earliest flight out, barely slept, but still had a full day of work to fit in.

The Gift of Transformation

They say people don’t change, except in the movies. I’d believed that for the most part, until I started seeing changes in myself. My wife, Ariana, had changed too. Cancer had taken root not only in her body but in her mind, and it crept its way into me, making me something I wasn’t before.

But I wasn't bitter. I didn't regret those changes. I felt stronger for it.

Growing up, I was weak and would whimper at the first sign of conflict. I rarely spoke up for myself or expressed how I felt. Maybe I was just the scared boy who’d found himself at the mercy of circumstances beyond his control, or maybe I never really knew who I was.

Over time, Ariana strengthened me. She taught me what it meant to be myself and to stand up for what I believed, to protect myself, to keep going when things got tough, and most importantly, to speak my truth. To cut through the bullshit with honest words.

That is a gift she gave me, and I’ll cherish it always. It hurt during the “teaching,” but I’ll never regret it.

The Absence That Shaped Everything

I’ve always felt this loss in my life. The incompleteness of not knowing who the other half of me was. My Dad left when I was young.

We saw each other occasionally when we could manage the 1,500-mile distance between New York and Florida. But what I remember most about those trips wasn’t the good times we might have shared. No, it was the loneliness of being around someone who was supposed to be my dad.

I just wanted him to hold me and know me. To get more than glimpses of who I was, instead of pretending we could maintain a real connection through mostly missed birthday phone calls and scattered Christmas wishes.

Worst of all, I remember those moments waiting to board the plane home. Holding him, hugging him, not wanting to let go. Finally seeing this person who was supposed to be half of me, only to be ripped away again.

I’d sit by the airplane window, staring back at the gate, hoping to catch one last glimpse of him, barely able to hold back my tears. It was gut-wrenching. Brutal.

As I grew older, our relationship grew more distant. I was moving into adulthood, and the window for forming our relationship felt closed.

The Search for Wholeness

I never said these words out loud except to my wife, but I regretted every day not being close to my dad. It was an unbelievable pain and loss in my life. I wasn’t sure whether to be angry or sad, though I was grateful for my amazing mom and stepfather.

But I was always searching. I spent my life trying to figure out who I was, feeling incomplete without knowing where the other half of my genes came from. My mom and sister would remind me how much I looked, talked, and acted like him. But that was all I knew; their stories and those scattered weeks here and there.

I joked about having “daddy issues,” but deep inside, I was broken. Devastated. I just wanted to know this man. I wanted a relationship, but it felt impossible.

The Moment Everything Changed

I set up my laptop at my Dad's house while he was still at work, positioning myself at his desk with a full view of the driveway. As the hours passed, my anxiety grew.

What am I going to do? How am I supposed to act? What can I say?

I kept checking the clock, distracting myself with work, then checking again. Until I saw his red truck pull into the driveway. My heart began racing. My throat tightened. Breathing became difficult.

The door burst opened.

“My son! Where is my son?”

Oh my God. What is happening right now?

The innocence in his voice. The honesty. I’d never heard this before. I started panicking, unsure how to handle this moment.

He ran into the office, threw open the door, and grabbed me. We hugged. He told me he felt better because I was there. He did not let go.

As each moment passed, my heart shattered a little bit more. My eyes filled with tears. It was everything I’d wanted for thirty years. Just an honest, real moment with my dad. Standing in his home office, embracing each other, I finally understood why I was there.

Finding Our Way Back

We went to dinner that night at a Greek place near his house. Over octopus and whole fish, we talked and laughed. That was our thing, we could laugh for hours together. Deep belly laughs over the dumbest things. Call it shared DNA or shared humor, but once one of us started, the other would follow until we couldn’t breathe.

There was a lightness to that evening, though my guard remained up. My inner child was still scared, still unsure what to expect. We finished dinner and went back to his place to watch TV until he passed out on the couch, snoring.

It was time for bed.

The next day brought his test results. Big day for everyone.

The Weight of Truth

I woke to the sound of Dad moving around in the kitchen. He steps sounded labored and his coughing so loud it made sleep impossible. He’d never been a good sleeper; every time I visited, he was up at dawn, cooking, doing construction work, whatever needed doing. But now there was anxiety in his steps. I could sense it.

After getting ready, we piled into the car and headed to the doctor’s office. The twenty-minute drive was silent, everyone anticipating what was to come.

The oncologist was young, thin, wearing wire-rimmed glasses. His voice seemed to come from the back of his throat as he delivered the news:

“You have two types of cancer in your lungs. One slow-growing that spreads like a spider web, and another larger tumor. We can radiate the tumor and use chemo to slow the spider web’s progress. Three rounds initially, then we’ll reassess. If it’s working, you’ll stay on chemo indefinitely.”

I scribbled notes, trying to ask the right questions while the doctor awkwardly gave my dad a side hug. “I like this guy,” he said.

He tried, but bedside manner wasn’t his strength.

I watched my Dad hearing the first of many difficult things to come, wanting to let him know I was there. It brought back memories of Ariana’s diagnosis and that sting in your stomach, the inability to fight tears, feeling hopeless and shattered.

In those moments, you can’t comfort anyone. You just have to feel whatever comes.

A Week of Discovery

We spent the following week together over dinners, doctor’s appointments, and movies. We laughed. We cried. Most importantly, we shared our lives.

It all led to one night of pure, raw emotional honesty.

It was late and I had to fly out early the next morning. I was sitting in the chair facing him on the couch. We were talking and I felt a pull to finally ask him the questions I was holding onto for decades.

In that moment, I paused, took a deep breath and let the words spill from my mouth.

Out of respect for what we shared that night, I won’t detail our conversation. But I can say it changed my life forever. We both found the courage and words we’d desperately sought since I was a child. It was the culmination of a week of progressively deeper, more intimate discussions.

I moved to the couch. We wrapped each other in our arms and began sobbing. The only words spoken through the sobs was, "I forgive you. I forgive you." I felt whole. Like a ten-year-old boy whose dad had finally returned home.

I finally understood why he’d made the choices he did. I learned who he was, who this man really was beneath the absence that had defined our relationship.

The Healing

I went to bed but couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t wait to tell Ariana what had happened. I was also heartbroken that our week was ending, that shared tragedy was what finally broke down our walls.

But that moment will live in me forever. That connection re-established our shared history, making our family line whole again.

The words we exchanged—which remain between him and me—will ring in my mind for the rest of my life. Our shared tears and embrace took me right back to that scared little boy, who finally reached out and found what he’d always wanted.

His dad.

Sometimes the worst circumstances create space for the most necessary healing. Cancer took so much from our family, but in the cruelest irony, it also gave me back the father I’d been searching for my entire life.