I called my Dad today to see how he was doing. He had a physically recently and they noticed that his liver enzymes were off the chart. They did some more blood tests and it turns out he has Hepatitis C.

I don’t really know anything about the disease, other than it is the leading cause for Liver Cancer and Liver Transplant. I know that if caught early on it is pretty treatable with a 90% clearance rate. I don’t know how far along my Dad is, or what sort of treatment he will seek. Sometimes treatment isn’t even an option.
I am at a loss. I don’t know what to think. It is out of my hands and until more is found out I can only wait. It seems like every where I turn there is one more jab to my stomach.

It has started to sink in now. It is now more common for me to think of my parents as two separate individuals rather than two people joined as one. Christmas Eve dinner was awkward at best. My Mom pretty much ignored my Dad the entire night. And for the first time in my life I heard my mother introduce him as “This is David” rather than “My husband, David”. They aren’t officially divorced yet, but as far as everyone is concerned, it is only in the legal sense.

My Uncle Terry, my Dad’s brother in Law, came over before the dinner to talk to my Dad about the whole legal side of things. My Uncle used to be a lawyer. Even though My Uncle is only related to my Dad through my Dad’s “marriage” to my mother, he still seems to be pulling for my father in many respects. They are buddies and such. So he came over to give my Dad some advice which my Dad didn’t really want to hear but needed to. He is going to try and pursue the divorce through a paralegal instead of getting lawyers. I don’t blame him, seems less messy. But my uncle advised against it. Seeing as how my Mom has nothing to lose and everything to gain. He felt it would be better to get a lawyer and have my Mom served. I don’t think my Dad could bear to do that though. He doesn’t want my Mom back, but he still loves her and I know it pains him to do all this.

As for me I am still rather stoic about all of this, at least I appear to be. I know deep down I care about it all, but the feelings only manifest themselves in the form of artwork that I have yet to actually make. Other than the occasional artistic inspiration or the sporadic epiphany that everything I once knew is now changing, I have yet to feel anything real about all of this. Only God knows how long it will last though.

So, it is pretty official. My parents are getting divorced. My Mom has called appraisers to check out all the properties so that she and my Dad can settle all the financial stuff. It is really just weird. I remember as a kid having a friend who’s parents went through a divorce. I remember him saying it could happen to me. At the time I remember thinking “Never!”, but guess what, I was wrong. I can’t say that I am all that emotionally upset, at least not at the moment. I don’t know if it is because it hasn’t sunk in yet or just the fact that I am out of the house and have kind of distanced my self from the whole thing.

On top of all this, my Mom is now talking about moving to New York. Not the city, just the state. Albany I think. It just seems so random. She has a friend back there that she is pretty close to, and she has always loved the east. But still it is all so random. It’s like having a magic eight ball for a mother, she just keeps us guessing.