By Eric Matthew Burch

In this picture, my dad was holding my sister on his lap while she was eating. Photo contributed by: Eric Burch

On February 13th of 2012, I found out that my dad had esophageal cancer. It was one of the scariest moments of my life. 

I want to take a step back for a moment. A few weeks before this, my dad had passed out while eating and no one was home. He woke up by himself and went to the hospital. We did not think much of it, and in retrospect I surely wish that we would have.

I walked into a room with my sister and mother both crying and that is when I was told. I did not know what to say, so I texted a few friends and talked with them for a bit. It turns out that at the time my girlfriend’s step dad had the same kind of cancer. Her step dad just had a surgery and the the man was cancer free. I was expecting that to be the same case with my dad. And at first it was. He was scheduled to have a surgery at the Veteran Affairs hospital a month or two after. We had made countless trips down to Indianapolis to see him. In the meantime, I tried to keep up with my homework but was getting yelled at for sleeping in class because I didn’t get much sleep at night.

I remember writing something on a Google Document and I just reread it recently. On April 27, 2012, I wrote, “I just want you to know that I am more scared now than I have ever been in my entire life. When you told me about what the doctor said on Wednesday, I had so many questions that I didn’t ask because I didn’t want you to be scared.”

Along with other things that were happening, I began my freshman year in the fall. Marching band was hard because I had never had anything like that. I had struggled with depression and anxiety, among other things. Daily tasks, like waking up, felt the same as stepping onto a battlefield where no one survived. My freshman year there was this “Break the Gray” convocation at my school. My sister wanted to go but did not want to go alone so I went with her. It turns out that the son of the lead singer found me and talked to me about how I felt. Eventually, this stranger convinced me that nothing was worth all of the trouble. I started my silent recovery.

This was a family photo taken after church one Sunday. Photo contributed by: Eric Burch

As I continued with my recovery, my dad was working on his. After the surgery, he was cancer free. However, having to live with only a part of his esophagus was something that he was having trouble with. He was losing weight again. After months of him being in remission, he hit a relapse. He had been informed that he had lymphoma and was not going to make it much longer. He was diagnosed in July and over the next two months he had gone through something that was much worse than hell. The treatments were pointless in the end. Marching band and my new job were taking up all of my time from home, so he lived with my grandma, who could stay at home and take care of him all the time. I went to see him often, and they finally made the decision to put him in hospice. They had him in at my grandma’s house, and he spent a while there. Eventually, we moved him into a Hospice Center.

I missed a band rehearsal to go to South Bend to go visit my dad. It was a Monday night. We all said our final goodbyes, and I was going to call off work the next day just so I could go visit my dad another night, but something told me that I would not need to do that.

I was awoken at 5:15 am with a knock on my window. I thought that was strange, so I went to open the door and it was my brother, Quintin. He didn’t even have to say anything. I went to go get my mom, my sister, and my brother. We had some family time and talked about what we were planning on doing. I mean, losing your father really does put a dent in your plans. We decided it would be best for us to carry on with our day, because we knew that my dad would want us to keep him in our thoughts, but he would not want to disrupt anything. So I went to work, had a bad day, and had to deal with teachers who I did not want to explain that my dad died. Unfortunately, I didn’t do all of my homework the night before, so I got yelled at. I didn’t want to explain, but it was clear: if I came to school, my homework should have been done. I just wanted to see my friends; otherwise, I might have missed school. I went to work that night because I was afraid that if I didn’t go, we wouldn’t have money. Realistically, I went to work to keep my mind off of things. Luckily I had found a group of friends that truly cared for me and how I felt. They lifted me up in tough times.

Today, things are very different. Sure, I’m still sad at times and get very anxious, but I have taken my experiences within the past few years and use them as my recovery process. My family has worked with each other and we are very strong. In May of 2015, I moved from the house that I have lived in for fifteen years. I was afraid at first  I would be letting go of memories, but while I was going through all of my stuff, it just refreshed my memory. I am thankful that I moved, because it felt like I let go of my old demons. I am so proud of my family for making it this far. My sister lost her father when she was only thirteen years old. I was sixteen, and my mom was a widow at just 43 years old. We had this happen to us when we were so young, but we stayed together and still work hard to make each other happy.

I have learned from this man that when bad situations happen, you have to make do with what you have. I still miss him everyday.

In this photo, we were wearing shirts that say “Team Rudd.” This was the first year we had shirts made. My grandparent’s last name is Rudd and everyone who is related to them got shirts. Photo contributed by: Eric Burch