My Superhero

I remember that day like it was yesterday. I remember what I had for dinner after I heard the news. I remember the weather and I can almost picture the dark purple-ish sky that night. It was around 6:30 at night on a Thursday and I was fresh out of my elementary school’s after school program because my mom worked in the Yonkers and did not want me to go home and stay in the apartment alone. We were driving up to my grandparents house and I already had a bad feeling because we never drove to my grandparents house during the week because they lived about 15 minutes away and my mother could not stand the commute on weekdays. We drove up the steep driveway and as we inched closer I felt sicker and sicker. We knocked on the door and were welcomed in by my grandparents. We said our greeting and I was ushered upstairs to watch NCIS with my cousin Jared while the adults continued their discussion downstairs with my father who had yet to come up and greet me. I watched about one episode when my mother came up and told me it was time to leave but I was really upset because my father had not come up to simply say good night.
As we drove away from the house I asked my mother what was wrong with my father and she told me that the doctors think he is sick which made sense to me because for about a month or so my father had been experiencing severe pain in his throat and had almost completely lost his voice but as to why they needed to tell my mother in private still baffled me so I suppressed my questions for the time being. We picked up our chinese food and drove back home to my apartment. I could not hold it in any longer so I asked my mother “What do they think daddy has?”. She said, “They think daddy has cancer.”
The world stopped turning. I couldn't breathe. And for the first time in my life I had been speechless. After I heard those five words my life instantly changed and I knew that it would never be the same. My father was sick and there was nothing I could do. All of these emotions were hitting me at once and I did not know how to deal with them. I was angry at him for choosing to smoke and I was angry at the fact that he put his need to smoke over everything. The cigar always came before me because if it didn't then he wouldn't have even out that cancer stick near his lips. I became so enraged that I screamed at him, I wanted to hurt him as bad as he hurt me and damaged me. Sometimes I let the anger get the best of me and I lose control. After some time had passed, I apologized to him for what I said and he told me he deserved it, for putting me through this. We reconciled and from that moment on I knew that I had to be my fathers rock and support him through what he was going through.
On February 13 at 8:27 pm we got the call from the nurse that my father had passed. I was devastated and in shock but in the back of my mind I was always prepared for this moment. We call my dad superhero now. Always saving me and keeping us safe from above.