I’m beginning to understand why I need to be here so much, at my father’s bedside. Having had 24 hours off yesterday to take the kids to meet friends in town, it was so hard - like underwater punches - to go back into his bedroom, to see his yellow skeleton head on the pillow, to hear his puffs. If I never leave the room, that disintegration isn’t quite so striking. I understand why people keep away.
The family doctor visits and makes an almost-comical face when describing his bafflement at his patient’s continued survival. It seems we all have to keep remembering how serious this is, even though it seems ridiculous, utterly unreal. Why are the nurses taking this so seriously? Why are there so many carers here? Why are they all treating this like it’s a *real* life or death situation? We are getting worse and worse at maintaining our poker faces. I don’t even stop my iPhone game when the nurses come in, now. But I have developed a horrible new fear, too, to match my horrible new habit: what if this really *isn’t* real? It’s all just makeup and camera trickery, and tomorrow he’ll leap out of bed and berate us all for not fighting for his life hard enough.
Soon, says the doctor. Soon.