I sat in the all-too-quiet waiting room of the cancer center, counting the minutes until my treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I thought I’d beaten it two years ago. But it was back. After my initial diagnosis, Mom and Dad had driven more than 1,200 miles from their home in Westlake, Louisiana to be with me for three months while I recuperated from surgery and chemotherapy. And recently, when my cancer returned, they did too. They’d waited for hours while I received my treatments—Dad with his Bible and Mom with a magazine. But now they were home in Westlake.
My children are full-grown and my four brothers live far from my home outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I knew any of them would come if I asked, but I didn’t want to trouble them. Even with the intense loneliness I felt.
I half-heartedly picked through the stack of magazines on the end table beside me. I couldn’t help wishing my parents were there instead.
One publication caught my eye, a magazine I had subscribed to ages ago. I couldn’t tell you the last time I’d read an issue. I picked it up and I started right in with the letters to the editor.
“I love receiving my copy every month,” the first letter began. The author mentioned a daughter who lived in Clinton, Pennsylvania. Huh, that’s funny. I thought. That’s my town! I read the letter to the end, where my gaze fell upon the author’s signature:
“Thank you, Margie and Tom Parrish, Westlake, Louisiana”
Alone? Hardly. Margie and Tom—or as I call them, Mom and Dad—were right beside me, even now.
