Nothing stays the same for long. Things and people change, often for the 1, it seems, but once in a 2, very much for the better. I grew up on a small farm, living a life that I took for granted. I had a dog and mountains in whichever 3 I looked, and I awoke to the call of birds in the alfalfa (苜蓿) fields. My father worked in the city as a worker. He was quiet and 4. He was not 5 educated, but he was smart, with an engineer's way of looking at problems. He was a man made of leather and chewing tobacco who tried to teach my brother and me useful things, including respect. He also had a 6. I did not like him very much.
One day I came home from school and his car was already there. Once inside, I was told by my mother that he didn't feel well. His back hurt. My father never missed work; in fact, when he came home, he went to work even more. I remember looking secretly around the corner at him as he 7 on his bed in the middle of the day. I was in 8 school. Multiple myeloma, I learned, is a type of blood cancer. It starts in the 9 that normally make antibodies for the body to use in its immune response against 10. When those cells become ill, they make abnormal antibodies like crazy, 11 out the useful ones. As the cancer grows, the person who has it 12. The disease weakens the body's energy, and the abnormal antibodies cause problems for other cells and 13. Over time, bones 14 look like Swiss cheese, and when they break, they may never 15.
For the last year of my father's life, his entire day consisted of rising from his hospital bed in the living room and walking to his chair to sit and think. He was 16 in that chair when I came home one day during the fifth grade. I do not remember where my mother and brother were, but the two of us were17. He asked me to sit down. What followed still moves me these 18 later. He told me about his life, his family growing up, what it was like in the Pacific during World War II, his loves, his heartbreaks. It was as if a pipe had 19, his inner self rushing out to me in a great flood. He had been speaking for maybe an hour or more when I realized that he was doing more than telling. He was asking to be forgiven. All it took was understanding that that was what he needed, and I 20 everything, immediately.
