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?