I will never forget the feeling in my stomach as I trudged down the stairs after a long day at school, on the way to a kitchen for a quick snack. As I started to glide into the living room with the light tan couches, I stopped short, not sure what to think about the view in front of me. I almost gasped, the words, “oh sh*t” almost escaping my lips. But I caught myself.

I couldn’t believe that I forgot, I still can’t believe it. How did I not notice the white bandage, slowly turning red, covering almost all of his cheek when I first slipped into the house? I didn’t know what to say to him. I turned and walked as silently as possible out of that room and back upstairs, hopeful that he didn’t notice me standing in the doorway with my mouth gaping open. Hopeful that he wouldn’t notice me at all.

My eyes started to fill with tears. I was so angry at myself. How could I forget that he was having another surgery, that another cancer would be cut out of his face like a bruise cut out of an apple or a pear? I was angry at him for getting cancer in the first place. Why did he have to work long hours outside, forgetting to apply sunscreen and letting the sun’s rays seep into his skin? But I was most angry at him because this means that there’s more of a chance that I will get skin cancer. I shouldn’t have been angry at him, it’s not his fault, it’s no one’s fault, but I blame myself for it.

After three days the bandage came off and I was faced with the black stitches in his cheek. I didn’t know how to talk to him anymore. I found myself looking down when he spoke to me, afraid that I would be caught staring at the scar stretching in a line about an inch and a half long, starting just below his eye and almost reaching his ear lobe.

He is my dad, I shouldn’t feel guilty every time I look at him. It is not my fault that he has cancer. It is not my fault that he went through four surgeries in one year alone, with another one coming soon. But for some reason, I blame myself. I feel guilty because I forgot about the surgery. I feel like it’s my fault that he has cancer because I forgot about him. These conflicting thoughts run through my head, “You didn’t do anything wrong, it’s not your fault,” fighting against, “How could you do that to him? How could you forget something this important?”

The stitches were soon taken out and the scar is slightly lighter than the rest of him. I’ve gotten used to it, the three spots of pinched skin on his face, one next to each ear, the other below his eye, and the last scar on his back. The skin stretched over the wound, trying to cover up what was once that bruise in that apple or pear. I still can’t believe I forgot.