“I stood in my bedroom doing my makeup when I heard my parents across the hall in the bathroom. My father was groaning in immense pain and luckily my mother was there to help him. I was a self-absorbed twenty-something at the time—bouncing back and forth between two men like a rubber ball. But this moment between my parents struck me.
My father moaned. “It’s okay, Chris,” my mother said to him. “I’m here.”
That was the start of my father’s painful side effects from his prostate cancer years prior—something that would only get worse with time.
As I leaned toward the mirror, slipping mascara onto my lashes, I heard more grumbling from my father. I froze. I was stuck in their moment with no place to go. I heard a clank in the bathroom. A mess was made out of my father’s control. My mother would be the one to clean it up. “I’m so sorry,” my dad said.
“It’s okay, Chris,” my mom said. “I’m here.”
After I was done with my makeup, I sat on my bed with the door cracked open. While I was nervous about my dad’s health, tears fell onto my jeans because I finally realized something—THIS is marriage.
