I'm not sure how many of you are watching This is Us. I'm also unsure if I should recommend it or not to anyone who is living with the reality of cancer, or the mortality of someone they love in the near future. There's something disturbing about watching your own fears play out on the television, with actors who you've never met - finding common ground with someone who isn't even real is comforting and terrifying all at once.
Today, I watched Randall live the nightmare that I had over and over again when my dad was sick. He walked into a dark room, he reached out to shake his father's shoulder at the piano bench. And he was dead. As the man slumped foward towards the keys of the piano, I felt myself jump and heard the gasp leave my mouth. He woke with a startle, from what we learn was a nightmare. And I breathed a sigh of relief. For this character I will never meet. And it all came back in a flash.
When my dad was at home, in a hospital bed in the living room of the house he built for his family, I slept on a couch. Then a futon. And when we realized it was going to continue for longer than we anticipated, I moved myself in. And my mother moved a day bed into the corner of their family room for me. I slept at night downstairs with him. And my worst fear was always that I would wake up in the morning to my mother coming downstairs and find my father dead. He would have died on my watch. I remember waking up with a start many nights, unable to hear his steady breathing, and making my way to his hospital bed that was stationed in front of the beautiful brick and tile fireplace he built with his own hands and watching for the rise and fall of his chest. For over a year, I can recall not taking my glasses off as I slept - for fear I would have to jump up at a moment's notice and not being able to see.
When parents point out how hard it is to not sleep, I relate. When they say you have no idea of what responsibility is until you're responsible for another human life - I know it even more than they can imagine.
I prayed. I bargained. I wished. I hoped. Everything and anything you can do. Any god you can pray to. I implored them to not let me be alone and have to worry about a dead father. It's funny. I had forgotten all about that. And how angry I was when people talked about my father's end of life. Until I watched this man. Someone who isn't real. Someone whose life will probably never actually mirror mine yelled at a therapist "should we just dig the hole now or wait until there is an actual body?!"
So I'm still unsure if I should suggest to people who have been or will be in my position that they watch This is Us. But I can say they're dealing with an actual real life situation in a very real way. I always scoffed at and mock the hospital shows - their ventilators are always wrong. The way people react is never real enough. And then here's this random show. With Randall. And the way he feels anger, has fear, clings to his job as the stable and solid part of his life. It's all so real, that all of "us" - those in that club that has the highest of dues - is, in fact, This is Us.
