Triumph?

Today I threw away the mask that I have kept for 13 years as a symbol of Dad's triumph over cancer.  Because radiation treatment requires extreme precision and my dad's skin cancer manifested in the lymph node in his throat, his doctors had to mold a mask that would hold his head still during the treatment. A plastic mesh was heated and stretched over his face until it cooled. Once the form was made, it could be reused daily for as long as the treatment continued.

Dad had two masks made because the doctors made a mistake with the first one. Rather than just throwing it out or melting the plastic down to be recycled, they gave us the mask to keep. My mom and I have always collected interesting scraps for craft projects, and this one had the potential for really interesting projects.

When dad was declared cancer-free, I instead chose to keep the mask as a sort of trophy, something that said "Look at this horrible thing that my dad triumphed over!" When we moved away from Big Bend, the mask ended up pressed against a hot car window, and the nose was smushed, but the resemblance was still there. In my new room, it adorned the top of my bookcase. Certain friends of mine thought it was creepy. 

The night that Dad died, I couldn't look at his face on top of my bookcase, even if it was just a plastic mesh simulacrum. I picked up the mask and took it into the other room so I wouldn't have to see it while I tried to fall asleep. After 13 years, the plastic was brittle, and the mere act of lifting it caused it to crack and break into multiple pieces.

Today, while I was cleaning house, I decided the broken pieces needed to be thrown out. The plastic was too fragile to try to put it back together, and eventually you run out of places to keep every memento. I was trying to be practical.

It's amazing how the tiniest thing can mean so much. The pieces of plastic no longer looked like my dad, but I knew that they did once. Throwing out the pieces felt like throwing out a memory. His triumph over cancer didn't prevent him from coming down with pneumonia. Keeping the mask didn't mean I got to keep my dad.