Year: 2019

June 16, 2019 at 04:00AM by CWC The first time I shoot a text to a potential friend, I keep an eye out for one major red flag. If you have your read receipts on, I want nothing—n-o-t-h-i-n-g—to do with you. This may seem extreme, but evidence from communications past leads me to believe that this move is at best passive-aggressive and at worst just plain rude. Unless, of course, you’re a dad. Then all bets are off, and I honest-to-God believe you’re just doing the best you can while tapping away with both pointer fingers, using flip phone-era shorthands (“U OK?”), and sending paragraph long sonnets about the world’s most underrated pastime: lawn-mowing. Today’s Father’s Day. So as a little experiment to celebrate my dear (timeless) dad, I turned on my read receipts last week and readied myself for the text-apocalypse. For the uninitiated, read receipts are an optional iMessage feature that allows the person who texted you to know if you’ve seen their message and at what time. Most people turn them off. Surely, by turning mine on, my friends would dump me, my family would write me out of their will, and the robots that send my Amazon shipping updates would ghost me (the horror!). Was I being dramatic? Sure. But just a little dramatic. People truly did take offense at my newly minted receipts. Plus, I started to feel ~stressed~ when I couldn’t answer messages immediately. It was as if Uncle SMS was watching over my shoulder.

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June 15, 2019 at 02:00PM by CWC I started kindergarten early—not just because I was ready, but because maybe, just maybe, that accelerated year was another school year my dad would get to experience with me. I celebrated many childhood birthdays within the walls of a hospital. I can break down a wheelchair and perfectly place it in the trunk of a Honda at record speed. My mom and I are on a first-name basis with many nurses, and we update his doctors by texting their personal cells. This has been my normal for my entire life. My dad was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes (Type 1 diabetes), a bear of an illness, when he was five years old. Since then, he’s suffered every complication imaginable; his prognosis ultimately became terminal due to his heart and kidney issues. He’s endured several laser eye procedures, quadruple-bypass heart surgery, and has had both of his legs amputated. He is in a constant state of congestive heart failure, and only has one functioning kidney. The other works at 20 percent, which translates to Stage 4 kidney failure. He’s even losing the ability to use his hands. ad_intervals[‘401183_div-gpt-ad-7435403-3’] = setInterval(function () { if (ads_ready) { clearTimeout(ad_intervals[‘401183_div-gpt-ad-7435403-3’]); googletag.cmd.push(function(){googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-7435403-3’);}); } }, 100); Despite all of this (or perhaps because of it) my father is one the most incredible people I know. He is many things: stubborn, Irish, sarcastically funny, kind, generous, wise, and strong. He never complains, and continues to fight through his disease like a warrior.

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