The Litigator

My father has a brain tumor. More specifically, he has a grade IV astrocytom called a glioblastoma multiforme, a star-shaped malignancy that, according to the doctors, is eating away at his brain cells. The tumor is located in the cerebrum region of the brain that controls communication. Due to the necrosis that has occurred, again according to the doctors, he sometimes finds challenges choosing the correct words to convey his thoughts.

My father is a litigator, a civil trial specialist, only one of a select group in the country of such distinction. His entire adult life, he has made a living with his communication skills. The curious thing is that for the first time in his life, my father is communicating, truly communicating, with his loved ones.

I inherited the gift of words from my father. I love the way words roll off the tongue, the irony of oxymoron, and the play of double entendres. Like my father, I chose a profession that utilizes this skill. I, like the litigator, use the verbal language to argue, to advocate, and to influence. Yet, in the personal arena, where my father has struggled, I have excelled. One always in touch with my feelings, as well as others, I have never failed to articulate them. Yet, as I process this journey with my father, I find words inadequate to express the experience.

My father says he manifested this tumor himself – to relieve his spirit from a lifetime of pressures, to allow a healing from what he terms “the illusion of conflict,” and to experience the true joys of this world. As I watch my father, in this moment of physical fragility, embrace his human experience with such honesty and strength, I realize miracles indeed come in strange packages.