24 December 2020

You’re not eating and I’m not hungry. Without food to prepare the day is full of emptiness. I’m so tired and I can’t sleep. I’m shut away behind glass. Talking into plastic with voices as far away as a person could possibly be. The expanse of distance that is Not Here.

Between the phone calls, the family’s visit to outside your window, the Sue Ryder women attending, and keeping the diffusers topped up, time morphs and warps.

I sit with you when I can next to the bed on Mum’s old nursing chair. I tell you all the ways you’ve guided and inspired me. I talk of holidays and high days, snatching at the memories. I laugh at myself that I’m so poor at the detail. I don’t want you to be surrounded by tears and sadness so I do my best to be calm and stoical like you always are. And every time I leave the room, I grip your shoulder or kiss your forehead through my mask and tell you I love you.

And sometimes I can’t sit with you. I have to tune out with a book or the TV. Even though the words tumble and fall away, slipping from my grasp.

You’re dying. The truth of it is startlingly clear and bitter in my mouth.

I start waking every three hours. I’m scared to sleep in case something has happened. I check on you at 01:30 and again at 04:30.