Three Years

It was three years ago today I watched my funny, sweet, dear, sick, frail father gasp his last failing breath. My brothers, their partners and children, my sweetheart and my mother were all there with him, touching him, keeping vigil.


He was taken by a strange and nasty disease that's a cousin somehow of Parkinson's. Shy Drager Syndrome, like most wasting diseases, takes a vicious toll on the victim, and on those who bear witness to its ten-year course.


We had known Dad was going to pass away for about 24 hours before he took that last breath, but the advance knowledge did nothing to lessen the shock and pain when another breath didn't come. And didn't, and still didn't. I continue to be astonished at the depth of that pain, and its ongoing strength. A thousand days have passed, but it feels like one, especially on the anniversary. I know my stoic mother suffers her loss terribly.


I still sometimes think, "Oh, I'll have to tell Dad that!" when something bizarre or noteworthy happens, only to be caught off guard yet again by the searing remembrance of that evening, that last breath and the daily niggling sense of 'missingness' ever since.


I'm going to spend today with my mother, serving 'church-lady' lunch at, oddly enough, a funeral reception. She's making sandwiches, I'll bring a lemon loaf. She and I will do our best to 'keep it together', to avoid making any of the mourners uncomfortable with our tears, always so close to the surface around this time of year. But I can't guarantee anything.