Eating

Dad’s sent me a text message. It reads - BIN eating. I want to make a joke in my reply, but I resist, knowing that this might make him confused. Instead, I tell him that it is snowing here, that the owls are crying into the night, that the stars are full in the sky.
The full weight of meaning has started to hit us all, the awareness that he is dying, really dying, dying forever, that soon he will no longer be among us. We don’t know how long that might be, still nobody has told us. Yesterday he held mum’s hand and cast his eyes to the floor, thanking her for all she has done for him. We are all more distressed than we can articulate. As I hugged him and left him in the nostalgia of the community hospital, I told him I loved him and he did not seem able to look at me. I feel pathetic, weak, straining at the effort of containing my rage, my desolation, my powerlessness. There is no consolation and the awareness of this cancer that has invaded all of our lives lingers always. I find myself reluctant to chase the consultant again for the information he has not yet told us, feeling unable to face it. Whenever I write of it, it feels empty, cliché’d, weak, I have no language to speak in, no words to articulate the memories, the thoughts, the imaginings. Each time I try to imagine what he might be feeling, I retreat from the attempt, entirely unable to venture there.