Hodgkin's lymphoma is a curable cancer, but the news still sort of hit like a sledgehammer.
My father is 52 and apparently should survive with proper treatment. It shouldn't hinder my daily life in the least - I just might take more time visiting family in my next weekends instead of staying at home, having no life, struggling to master that fsking wiki and destroying spam posts.
What complicates things is that I practically had given up on the relationship between me and my father - I leave messages to wish him a happy birthday and a merry christmas and all I get is rotten silence; he couldn't care to reply... and then his mortality knocks at his conscience and he's apologizing to me and saying he lost my phone number and was scared of calling me back because he feared I would reject him.
I'd have every right to reject him! It's too late, I'm grown up now and he was barely ever there! Helping me pay my school debt won't fix that - I'm not even sure I want to accept his money on that level to discourage the idea that he can bribe his way into my good graces...
Anyhow, his call sort of (foolishly) revived my hopes that he and I could somehow get along... so, I'll give it another try. I'll probably end up being bitter and disappointed for my effort -- but I guess I'll be ever-naive in that regard, dammit.