Art of dying

On Wednesday, I received the news that my father has two weeks - if that long - left to live. Try as I have to prepare myself for this over the last four years (when he was first diagnosed with Alzheimer's), it's been all for nothing. The reality; the finality is here and I am alternately devastated and angry beyond words that he has been robbed of everything--his motor skills; his ability to breathe; his mind and his sight. Emphysema is what will end his life; pneumonia and the subsequent fever and infection that is shutting his kidneys down will be what robs me now of my father. He has deserved so much better than this and I am enraged by life's cruelties.

I go to the nursing home and sit with him and talk to him. He can barely hear or comprehend me. I leave in a blinded state of tears mixed with fury.

Every time the phone rings, my heart sinks. I know the phone call is coming. No longer if but when. Now it's all about waiting.