Dad and I spent many Fridays from March til September fishing. This is one of my favorite shots of him. We would go to Mills Pond (it's not really a pond, it's an old mill with a river that runs up from it for miles)

Is It Time For The Train?

Dad needed a hand bell to ring when he needs help. He doesn’t have the voice to call out anymore, and the panic button on the monitor doesn’t seem to work, or mom is just too asleep to hear it… I found one at an antique shop in Selma. It’s loud, and I think dad should have no problem waking up the house.

I had dinner over there yesterday. Then we watched The Blind Side. I’ve seen it 3 times now, and I cry each time. Dad seemed to enjoy it.

He has congestion in his chest and he struggles to get it up and out. He basically can’t at this point. He looks so close to death. His skin is purplish, and his body is feeling more pain. He refuses to take morphine, he wants to be completely cognitive. He's skeletal at this point. He's nothing more than a human form at it's most base level. I can't believe that he has gotten to this point. Now dad has become an image I will always have of dying.

It was very difficult staying over there yesterday evening. It just seemed like dad is in the process of trying to die. He just lies in his bed and he’ll rest his hands and arms in a cross shape across his chest. He closes his eyes and I try so hard to see through him, but I can’t. I can’t for the life of me figure out what he’s thinking, what he needs, if I can help him in anyway and it frustrates me. I don’t ever want to go through this again. I can’t do this again, I hope that everyone else in my life lives longer than me so that I don’t have to see this slow agonizing decent into death. You just don’t realize how vicious cancer is till you watch someone die from it.

I came home very agitated and ill last night. I just feel so helpless that I can’t do anything but watch my dad die. I am lost in my thoughts, this fog of despair.

The Reality

I’ve been avoiding writing in my blog for a while. I have been keeping myself distracted with such frivolous things that I’ve not allowed myself to feel anything. I think my brain believes that dad is just in a temporary state of illness. My heart knows better. How do I detach from the situation? I go on with my days as if nothing is the matter. I go see dad and I am so locked within my own story of what is happening that I see past him, past his weak, emaciated, contorted body. I see nothing more than the images of my dad that I’ve painted in my memory. Sometimes I’ll come back down to earth and I’ll see him for what the situation is and I’ll heave inside with despair. Somehow I always manage to keep a grip on the jagged stone walls that I have climbed up and held onto. I try so hard not to allow myself to think about what dad might be thinking, or feel what dad might be feeling. I shut off my empathy; I don’t want to know what it’s like to be in his shoes. I know that I can’t handle that.

I know that he is this man that I’ve always admired and I know that he is so strong in that he is stoic in his perseverance. I just wish that I knew what the purpose of this is. He’s been in that bed in a constant state of deterioration for 4 months. How much longer can he hang on? He hasn’t eaten anything other than a pancake in those 4 months. He’s forced down three to four ensures everyday and sipped water endlessly. What is that like? I think I’m going to try it for a week to see for myself. God, what’s the point in this snip it of life? I feel so helpless and angry. I feel guilty for having the ability to eat, the ability to walk out the front door and enjoy the sun. I feel so guilty for having the ability to do all the things that my dad dreams about every minute, and I have that and I squander it. I feel horrible that I can leave dad’s side and come home and turn it all off in my mind and go on as if he’s ok and mom has to stay in this hell 24 hrs a day.

I don’t know what more I can do at this point. I feel dumbfounded, gob smacked, flabbergasted, bewildered, and overwhelmed. I want this to be over and I want to move on in such a way that I shatter everything around me that is familiar. I want to propel like a rocket into my life without dad and embrace everything and live like I’ve never lived. I just want this pending devastation to happen so I can put myself back together again. I want to know that dad isn’t suffering anymore; I want to know that mom is unfettered from this emotional despair. I don’t want dad to go, but he is and I can’t stop that. I love him so much and it kills me to know that he’s going to a place that I can’t go, might not go, probably won’t go…