Month: December 2016

I’m lucky enough to have so many people that care about me and want to take this pain away. They have ideas of how to feel better and things I should do and say that will help take away this bountiful sadness. One thing I’m told repeatedly is to tell him everything I would want him to know. Don’t let any stray thought go. Let him know how much you care and you’ll miss him and pour out your heart. But how cruel can you be? The man is laying here dying, unable to do a single thing and you’re telling him that his dying is hurting you? Of course it’s hurting you! Of course you love him and now you’re just reminding him that he’s leaving someone that loves him! Truly what good does this do.

But this morning I got advice from someone who recently lost her dad and while I was prepared to slough it off with the rest of the crap advice I’d been getting she gave the best piece of advice I could have ever hoped to receive. She told me to let him know that I will be ok. So. Simple. I will be ok. The woman he created is strong enough to get through this. The woman he created will keep his memory alive and will love his family for him and will love him forever but she. will. be. ok. Because like he taught me, pain is there for a reason. It’s mean to remind you to be careful, that there is something wrong, and to respect it so it can heal. And I’ll do just that.

I haven’t had much to say lately. Dad’s taken yet another turn for the worse. Sunday I got to not only buy diapers for my dad but also put together a toilet next to his bed in case he can’t make it. I’m slowly grasping that every time I make a plan to come back he might not be here. The goodbye I give might be my last goodbye. It makes it hard to walk out of the room.

I don’t feel eloquent. I don’t have a topic or an epiphany. I know I need to be writing things down but right now I think I’m not feeling much of anything and that worries me. I started making a christmas list and, as usual, I wrote mom and then I wrote dad but stopped halfway though because I don’t know if he’ll be here.

Mark wrote an obituary. Mom wrote an obituary. I’m supposed to make a true and final obituary but I can’t even open a blank page to start which is weird for me. I love free flow writing.

I peeked in on him sleeping the other day. He’s so tiny. So pale. He’s hardly there. But that spark won’t die out. He’s still telling me where things are and what needs to get done. I’m still running around emptying rain barrels for him and changing out screen doors for glass ones.

He’s bleeding. In his urine, in his vomit, when he coughs. He’s leaking. Just more places cancer is consuming my dad. From the inside out. It’s just spreading everywhere like wildfire, scarring and constricting all his vital organs until they will eventually fail. My dad will die. In this hospital bed. In their house. And there he will lay, not breathing, no heartbeat. I just need to know how it’s going to happen so I can prepare myself.

My eyes constantly cry but my body isn’t reacting the way it was before. I’m sure it will again but the last few days I’ve been teflon. And as much as I don’t miss the pain I was feeling I do as well because my dad is dying and I need to feel this pain to know it’s real. Why do my tear ducts understand this but the rest of my body doesn’t?