Where I'm Calling From

My father is dying. It could be weeks, months, or days or hours. We don't know.

I have to admit, I am cringing every time the phone rings and I see their number on caller ID.

Since September he has been going downhill. A year ago he was strong. He was the one who wheeled me in the hospital. He helped the nurses turn me over to change my bed. That man is gone. Since then he has dropped four inches in height and lost over 40 lbs from not wanting to eat. He's wasting away in front of all of us.

This is changing the whole family dynamic. With my dad unable to be the patriarch, my mother has slipped into that role, with my sister not far behind. I don't have a say in anything. Which is Ok with me- both my mother and sister have very dominate personalities, and I have always been more introverted then them.

What isn't good is the medication issue keeps coming up, raring it's ugly head. My mother and sister want me on medication. I just want to be left alone with that, I'm still trying to detox from being on psych meds for over half my life. I'm still having problems urinating, and sleeping. I really want to try to see what will happen if I go med free.

I've never felt so alone. I talk to the cat, I talk to my best friend on the phone. I dread seeng my dad- it's so heartbreaking to see him the way he is, so fragile, but on the other hand, if I don't see him, I don't want to have any regrets. But I'm scared. I've lost grandparents. I've lost friends. I even had to put down a beloved cat, which was a hard thing. But I never thought- really thought my parents were going to die. I always thought they would just be there.

My dad is the one who taught me how to ride a bike. He was a very big man, and it wasn't beneath him to play tea party with my sister and I- his big hands could barely hold the delicate cups of invisible tea. My father taught us how to throw a ball, and at the same time, to introduce his girls to opera, took us to the Met to see a production of the Student Prince. My father was the one who read me bed time stories, and as I would find out later, was the tooth fairy. My father taught me so much about living, and now he is showing me how to die with dignity.

I don't know if I will continue to blog every day- I find my writing goes in spurts. Some days it's like diarrhea of the pen, other days I am as sterile as the Waste Land. I suppose this is the way it will be for the next little bit. My moods keep fluctuating like the tides. And I hang on, trying to get out of bed every day and visit my father. Because I never know now whether the phone will ring in the middle of the night, it will be the call we all dread to get. And because I am my father's daughter, I will survive it.