Today is a bit of a mixed feelings sort of day, I guess. Dad called this morning and asked about our trip to Japan, and we talked about translating poetry and all the double meaning there is in stuff (he's been reading books about the poetry in the Bible), and it was all nice and happy until he got to the part about why he really called, which was that his doctor told him to tell his family members that they should start getting colonoscopies early because now there's a history in their family for colon cancer. I'm not sure if I should say it was brilliantly played or what, because basically what this delivery did was make me not worry about him quite so much because the first part already had me freaking out about my own health. But I don't know if he was going for a, "Don't worry about me," sort of thing or not. Maybe he was, based on the fact that later in the conversation he said he was just sorry to saddle us with the prospect of colonoscopies.

There was another reason I wasn't too worried about it either, and I think it's because last year at the ward Halloween party, we asked a lady in our ward how she was doing, and she was talking about everything that was going on in her life, and she was like, "Oh, and I have cancer, so I have to go get treated for that," like it was just another annoying thing on her list of chores. A year later, she doesn't seem any worse for the wear, so it put this idea in my head that maybe cancer's not that scary after all. On the other hand, he didn't tell us how far along it was or anything, all he said was that he gets tired more easily.

And basically I just don't know what I feel about the whole thing. Mainly I think about how scared I would be if I were in his position, and I think that's what makes it the hardest. And then I remind myself that he's read up a lot on near death experiences, so maybe he's not as scared as I would be. But that's just another can of worms I don't want to worry about, and so the whole thing goes in circles again.

As for the worst case scenario...well, thinking about that (in the case of Dad in particular) involves confronting a lot of issues that I don't feel like I have the time to confront. But I do believe that death is not the end, so if the worst does happen, it will be sad, but I believe everything will be happy again. And in the meantime, we hope for the best.

On a happier note, one of the reasons I haven't had time to process all this is that we've had to keep working. But! the book we worked on was really easy and we finished our first draft really fast, even though it's for Seven Seas so it was the annoying format, so now we can have a nice relaxing evening. I think the first order of business is reading manga.

Today I'm thankful for the plan of salvation, getting to work on a fun new series, said series not being too chatty, having time for a relaxing evening, and having a lovely chat with Dad on the phone.