I can’t begin to count how many friends I have who have lost one or both their parents, sibling, grandparent, young friend and even a child to cancer. No matter how prepared we think we are to losing a loved one, we never really are.

This is why I’m sharing this personal post with you, because I know that there’s at least one person reading this now, wishing there was something they could do to stop it all from happening. I know how helpless you could feel and I know that more often than not, it is very difficult to actually talk about it, and that’s why I really encourage you to write about it. Pour your emotions out on paper and when the day comes and you’re strong enough and ready, share it with your closest friends; it is therapeutic.

Before I leave you to my own shared emotions, I reassure you that one day, you will find your strength again even though you will always miss that person that you only lost physically but will always remember. It is one of the most difficult journeys you will ever go through, but realizing how your loved one is no longer suffering will, somehow, make it more acceptable.

September 21^st, 2010

One of the evenings in my room

That tough person is no longer there. He bends and breaks like everybody else. The figure that once was my protector and symbol of strength, can barely look up straight or even hold himself together for a couple of steps. The fear of losing him is not what comes to mind, for that’s just another fact. Seeing him lose himself, his sense of existence, his right to breathe without going through pain every minute of the day is what keeps hitting me. I look at him and all I see is weakness, helplessness, pain, confusion and too many unanswered questions and cries for help.

I hide in my room. I hide in my head. I shut it all out. But the image of his dissolving soul and body lurks in my mind and creeps into my heart tearing every part of it as I sit there waiting for that moment.

Once a bundle of love, positivity and ambitions, now nothing but desperate hopes of painless breathing. He sits and he waits, aching as he keeps himself awake scared of shutting his eyes wondering if he’d still be there the minute after.

I can’t look into his eyes anymore; they’re just not there. His mind, his every sense is another foot into that other world. They call it active dying, quite a descriptive term. I keep asking myself how he really feels deep down. He tries so hard to sit in silence, to be at his peace and spare us the agony of his being, but his lack of being fails him.

I want to pray for him but I get lost in space wondering who it is I’m talking to. How could the same idea of a God who has created life’s beauties and hopeful journeys, create such pain and agony. Does he just watch people suffer? Does he intentionally plan for it to happen this way? But why? I do believe in him. I believe in his greatness and wisdom but such ruthless pain has always been beyond me.

I lie in bed every night knowing he’s in the other room, sunk deep in that big chair resting his heavy head on his now small and weak figure of a hand, high on morphine and a combination of pain and deep anxiety not even recognizing his own self anymore. He’s been taken over by the science that failed him and those who sit in that same void every day of their lives till it’s time for them to let go of their last hopes of breathing through it all. Now when I look at him, nothing I see resembles what I remember of him.

September 27^th, 2010

No idea what time it is

I hear the siren.

My half-sister’s 3-year-old son is trying to talk to his grandpa and getting angry he’s not responding. I go over to him and whisper to him that grandpa needs to sleep. I take him with me to my room, where I’ve been hiding for weeks. I shut the door.

I hear my mother and half sister crying. I hear two men talking, my brother is telling them to be careful while carrying him. They realize they can’t get him on the stretcher so they carry him in his big green lazy-boy chair instead.

I hear the house door slam. It takes me a few seconds, I’m too still. I finally get out of the room, walk out to the room where he was; empty. I walk over to the living room; empty. I look out the window; the ambulance doors were being closed.

The siren is back on, the neighbors are looking out their windows and a few are out on the street staring and talking. The siren sounds start fading away. My half-sister talks to me but I shut her out of my brain; she cries loudly then takes her son and leaves the house. I’m home alone. Lost. I sit on the little step and just stare in void. I’m not crying; I’m just still.

I call my brother; he tells me no hospital wants to take him because “they don’t have room.” Apparently hospitals can’t admit hopeless cases that are just dying; how would they make money off of that. Finally, one hospital does take him in. I’m back to being still for a while.

Then a scary thought hits me, what if he really is dying and I’m not there for him? What if he looks around him and doesn’t find me? I call my friend, Naila, to pick me up. I get in her car and she takes us to the hospital. I walk into the reception; my mother and uncle are standing there discussing financials with the staff.

“Where’s pa?” They point to a direction. Alone? My brother is with him. I walk over and up the ramp, he’s sitting in a wheel chair. My brother is on his knees, holding his hand and just looking at the floor. I burst into silent tears. I’ve never seen my brother look so helpless. He looks at me then walks out of the room.

I stand next to my dad; his head has dropped off his shoulder, he just can’t keep it up, it’s become too heavy. I hold it lightly and gently lift it up; I keep my hand there but he doesn’t like it, he tries to shake my hand away, it’s too painful for him, so I let go. His head drops again.

I’m still crying in silence. My half-sister walks in and starts crying loudly again. I yell at her, ask her to stop being so loud, and ask her to leave. I don’t want to scare him with our panic. Two male nurses come to take him away and up to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), they’re being unemotional. They push him like they push an empty chair down the hall. I yell at them and ask them to be gentle. He’s going away again. And I’m just watching, again.

September 28^th, 2010

1:15 pm – the staircase next to ICU

So this is what a person in a coma looks like. I saw it a lot in the movies, but up-close is just something else. He’s dying as per the book.

With every phase he slips into taking over his body, mind, soul and every sense of being. Not that I was optimistic he’d get any better; I knew the reality of it, I’ve known all along. I’ve been reading all about it in the past few months. All the advice they give about coping and caring for your dying loved ones. It was always at the back of my mind making it clearer for me as he slowly slips away into that other world.

I wonder if he really can hear anything we say or if the sound of the machines bothers him. Yesterday his eyes were closed, he seemed lost in sleep like a little baby unaware of all the fuss around him. Today his eyes are open. They moved him to his side, again just like the book says. His skin feels soft and damp – by the book. It’s amazing how they describe all the outer and physical changes in detail but how no one knows what goes on in the dying person’s mind. Is it still that same mind? Is it dead? Is it taken over by helplessness and giving up? Does it still believe in the same things?

He’s blessed for not going through any pain. It’s good he can’t feel a thing; but what if I’m not ready to let him go? What if I want to snap him out of it all? What if I close my eyes, wish so hard he’d meet me in our own little world when I was still his little girl? The little girl he used to take to school and was so protective of. What If I decided I’m too angry with science, disappointed in god, religion and everyone? Am I supposed to just sit there, and see him for those two hours a day and watch him “actively die?” When he’s dead, do we just burry him, say our prayers and condolences then go back to our everyday lives? I go home with my mother and brothers and sit in silence as it hits us more every hour? Then stare at his empty chair that used to hug the remainders of the person he was in the past few months? I’ll smell his clothes, shine his shoes, think about him, listen to the songs he likes, watch my mother suffer and struggle as she pretends to live.

And where does he go? Does he really go into that other world and meet everyone else that also slipped away into the same world? Does he make new friends and a new family? Or does he just sit there, alone in space, watching us live everyday one more time? Would he really visit me in my dreams? Would he remember the good and the bad memories? Or does he just disappear forever?

October 1^st, 2010

7:15 am

It’s a Friday. I’m in bed, anxiously awake like I have been since the ambulance took him away from his home to his new cold room, the ICU. So scared of hearing the phone ring. The phone rings. He’s gone. The world is still.

March 16^th, 2012

4:15 pm

It’s been one year and five months since he left my world. The feeling that he’s coming back feels even farther away. Him gone, made me stronger only on the very surface ; deep down inside my mind and in the deepest part of my heart, I’m still angrily empty. My brain cells, every tissue in my being still cannot grasp the idea that my own father is no longer in my life.

I’ve been waking up every day, starting yet another day with a heavy heart after waking up to the idea that another night has passed without him visiting in my dreams. I get angry with him for not showing up. I don’t care if he’s busy visiting anyone else’s dream, even if it’s my mom’s, I want him for myself. When he left, he spent time with me in my dreams every single day for a month. He was part of my daily events and my silent thoughts. I used to look forward to going to sleep knowing I’ll see him. He always looked so healthy, handsome, nicely dressed and peaceful. He was always ready to be there for me, all ears to my updates. And when I was done talking, he’d look me in the eye with the purest smile and then just leave. I wake up with a smile, knowing it’ll be a better day after spending some quality time with my pa.

I keep waiting for him every night. I think I always will.