My father has it. The prognosis is not good.
To be succinct: This sucks.
In the early 1950s, my dad was in his early
twenties. He and his first wife had my late older brother Chris when Dad was 18.
As with most struggling young families, sometimes one had to work in hard labour
to make ends meet. Such as it was with Dad.
Back then, asbestos was as common as smoking. No one suspected the future consequences of the substances; it was an essential commodity. Dad worked in a now-long-gone asbestos factory near Eastern Avenue and Cherry Street in Toronto. None of the workers wore any protective gear; the asbestos fibres were as thick as dust and filled the air. If you were working there, you were breathing the stuff. Dad said of the stuff: "In the early evening, when the shift was over, we would leave the plant to go home. The twilight sun caught the particles, turning the air into a sparkling champagne of colours. I remember thinking how beautiful it looked. That's the irony of the situation - something that looked so beautiful could end up being so deadly."
He worked there for approximately 18 months
before joining the Royal Canadian Navy. Not a long time in the grand scheme of
things, but certainly long enough so that 40 years later his life is likely going
to be cut short by it.
When my parents separated in 1982 to eventually
divorce, Dad and I became estranged. Over the next 6 years, we saw each other
perhaps twice and rarely communicated. For the next few years, we had more contact,
but still weren't any part of each other's lives. It was only in these past couple
of years that we have spent more time getting to know each other again. It wasn't
anyone's fault; just one of things that life throws at you. I think it's because
we both had to figure out who we were before we could meet as equals.
More later...
By the way, I've decided to rekindle the journal thing again. (Now there's an obvious post script for ya!)