Night before Father’s Day: Am up at my parents’ house. In the spare room. The blankets have my Dad’s smell and I am relishing that. He’s downstairs, watching TV. That’s all he does: TV, sleep. He doesn’t eat so my Mom gives him Ensure. Ensure and Gatorade. And, in small doses,Vodka.
He can still stand up on his own, though it takes a while to steady himself. He can walk, albeit feebly. Just when you think he’s asleep and not listening, he chimes in. He knows exactly what’s going on. He knows he’s dying.
There’s that Langston Hughes poem I love: “birthin is hard and dying is mean so get yourself some lovin in between.” We’re at the dying being mean part. Mean, so mean and loooooong.
I feel like my own life has been on hold for over a year. No doubt I pressed the pause button myself … Nobody made me… But I am still tired of it. At the same time I don’t want to fast forward because that means he won’t be here anymore.
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(((hugs)))
Simple yet poignant and truth.
xoxo
This is particularly difficult, isn’t it? Part of you hates the “looooong” aspect of this, and must make you want to hurry it up and have the mean part done. But hurrying it up means the end, and no one wants that. The truth is, when he’s gone — that’s it. He will not come back. And then you might miss even the loooong, mean part, because even though it was hell, you still had him.
I am sorry.