I Gotta be Somewhere

The year was 2006. My dad sounded a little groggy. “Did I wake you?” I said into the receiver, wishing I’d waited until later to call and see how he was feeling. The recent rounds of chemo had wiped him out. “Don’t worry about it,” he replied. “I had to get up and answer the phone anyway.”        

I shook my head, unable to help my grin. There was no sarcasm in his words, only matter-of-factness laced with a dollop of dry humor. 

My father was born toward the end of the Great Depression and was raised with the twin values of his generation: practicality and frugality. His mind was nimble, his memory a few shades shy of photographic, and thus he managed to skip two grades of school. There weren’t enough books in the county to satisfy his insatiable desire to read. Being the eldest of seven children, he also contributed to his family’s income by working long summer hours in the nearby radish fields. 

The formidable combination of his tireless work ethic and intelligence made him a success in business, yet he had no desire to show off. The three-bedroom rambler he purchased in 1967 was always good enough, and when he and my mom finally decided to purchase a Florida condo, they chose an equally modest dwelling. Paid for with cash, of course. 

Bladder cancer took my mother’s life in 1999, robbing them of the golden retirement years they had planned on. Widowed at 61, Dad drifted for a few years, was diagnosed with cancer himself and had two surgeries, drank too much, and managed to elude the determined chase of a ridiculous number of widows and divorcées in both Florida and Minnesota. He was living but not fully so; his mind and spirit still occupied with adjusting to his loss. 

I remember thinking that my old dad was back when, a few years later, he gave me an early morning ride to the airport. I was apologizing for the inconvenience and lack of sleep I was causing him, and he stopped me. With a nonchalant shrug, he quipped, “Well, I gotta be somewhere.”

When he spoke those words, we were crossing the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, the one that later fell into the Mississippi. The sun had not yet risen, and the river beneath us was silent and dark. With patient logic, he elaborated. “I’m alive, so I’ve got to occupy space somewhere. I could be in a lot of different places right now, but I was able to pick being here with you. We don’t always get to choose where we are.” 

At the time I laughed and was simultaneously touched, attributing the statement to another practical Dad-ism. As the years have passed, however, I have seen profound wisdom in his perspective. As it turns out, he beat lung cancer only to be later diagnosed with unrelated, advanced colon cancer. Toward the end of his life he was still fighting, frail . . . failing.

When he lay in the hospital bed, dying, I told him, “I’m so sorry that you have to be here.” A gentle smile crossed his emaciated features and he replied, “Well, you know, Peg, I gotta be somewhere. Unfortunately, this is one of those places I don’t get to choose.”

I nodded, his wisdom penetrating to a far deeper level inside me. His present “somewhere” was suffering excruciating belly pain while his lungs filled with fluid. Though the oncology staff increased his intravenous painkiller every time he asked, his pain was never relieved for long. He needed more, and more, and more. Despite this, he did not complain of his situation, collapse physically or emotionally, nor seek pity. He chose to accept his final illness with great dignity and grace. 

I didn’t want to plan his funeral, but hey, I had to be somewhere. Later, I did not want to be at the cemetery nor emptying my childhood home of its contents. But I had to be somewhere, didn’t I? Fast forward nearly twenty years and here I am in my own somewhere I did not choose.

Being diagnosed with an invasive and aggressive breast cancer three months after retirement? I mean, I gotta be somewhere, but really? This place? Here? With my days and my very life turned upside down by chemo, surgery, and radiation, I thought often about my dad and the tough years he lived through. The courage it took to get up and face every new day.

In my laundry room hangs the framed, original mission statement he wrote for the tool and die company he owned for many years. To the best of my recollection, he put these thoughts together back in the 1980s, when mission statements were just starting to become a thing. Props to Cousin Nick for saving this very special memoir from the dumpster.

It begins: “Our Mission Statement provides direction for our journey. Our journey may be long and arduous and one that will demand constant and continual improvement. The quest to fulfill our mission will require a relentless march forward.”

Not mere improvement, but constant and continual improvement. This, with a relentless march forward. That was him. That was Frank until the very end.

Six more months of active treatment with immune therapy infusions are scheduled for me. My physical state remains de-conditioned and weak, and you can imagine my patience level with that. I want to relentlessly march forward, to regain strength, but recent dermatologic surgeries on joints have complicated my plans to do so. Melanoma. It’s the 🤬 gift that keeps on giving.

Though my National Parks passport book has only a few stamps in it, I’m about a third of the way through collecting Minnesota State Park passport stamps and hiking club passwords. In 2025, the sun is expected to reach its solar maximum, which will hopefully mean many more aurora displays. So many things to do and see and experience, and so many grandchildren with which to do them.

Suffice it to say that winter was long and dark and I’m looking forward to spring. May at least some of somewheres that lie ahead of me be pleasant places to be, and may I continue the march forward with grit and good humor.