Confronting fragility: a perfectionist father’s illness.

“Nurses make horrible patients,” my dad’s words echoed in my mind as I stood beside his hospital bed. Confined to this cold and sterile room, he, once a seasoned nurse, now teetered between worlds, fighting to maintain control of his crumbling body and the walls that had always surrounded him.

My father took pride in his immaculate exterior wall. He kept a well-manicured lawn and showcased three exemplary children and a life partner we referred to as our “uncle” when outside the wall. The inside structure was sharp and less forgiving. Within the confines of his perfectly controlled life, I was subjected to restrictive diets and forced to starve myself, all in pursuit of fitting his external vision of a perfect 16-year-old girl. I didn’t match his mural, but at least I had “a pretty face.”

In this hospital bed, my father’s wall became brittle and translucent. Machines whirred, extending their tentacles, both charging him with life and subtly stealing it away. Weakened by the long-term use of prednisone, his body bore the weight of cancer’s progression, leaving him moon-faced and unrecognizable. His once unblemished mural, now in ruins, left him dependent and vulnerable, requiring nursing assistance for basic tasks like toileting and bathing.

In his time of greatest […]