This Time is Bad

This time, I just don't feel strong enough. I don't feel like I can do it this time.

It's my dad's eyes. He can't talk, but his eyes speak volumes. The look in his eyes says he doesn't want to be here. He's furious to have woken up. I know he loves us - it's not that he wants to leave us. It's that this mortal body, this life in the here and now, just feels like too much for him to bear.

This breaks my heart in a million pieces. I don't know what to do about this.

The last time when we found him, he was still awake. Loopy, about to be forced to drink charcoal and whisked away to the ER. But I got to talk to him. He was still my dad. So even when, at the hospital, he was completely out of it, even when he woke up and looked mad, he'd been there, been him, just prior.

This time, we thought he was gone. His eyes were flat. They kept saying, "If he wakes up..."

And then Friday seemed better. He did wake up. He could look at you, and when I asked if he knew I loved him, he nodded his head up and down. He knew us.

But yesterday at the hospital was awful. He was so agitated. He'd pulled out his IV just before I got there, and was trying to pull out the respirator tube. They wound up sedating him to calm him down. He slept all day.

I just cried. My brother was great with him. Very loving, but matter off fact. "Dad, does your hand hurt? This one? Right here? It hurts because that's where the IV is. It's a new one. It's clean, and they did a great job."

This is the kind of thing my dad responds well to. And I am not good at. I just cry.

It's 9 am and I should already be at the hospital, and I'm not. I knocked myself out last night, and boy, did I sleep. I just woke up. It's sunny out. I want to go for a run. This makes me feel so guilty.

My mother is strong, but nobody should have to be this strong. Her friends are rallying around her, and she has loving support constantly. But this time, she looks particularly tiny and fragile. I want to scoop her up and take care of her. And I'm so tired.