There’s something about waiting for someone to die.
You know that when it happens it’s going to be gut wrenching but you can’t let yourself feel that. Not yet. They’re still breathing.
You watch them deteriorate. Slowly fade from someone you knew, into someone that’s dying. The words “doing better than yesterday” no longer mean that they could turn it around. It means they’re lucid and less confused.
You’re trying to spend time with them, as much as you can. Making “the most of the time you have left” but it’s hard.
They aren’t the person you’re trying to spend time with, you’re trying to spend time with who they were before.
You’re already grieving, but not completely. You’re in a build up that’s about to crescendo but never quite makes it. Everyday you wake up waiting to be told that they’ve passed. Every text or call you receive could be it. And when it’s not it’s mostly a relief but in some ways, a disappointment.
And then there’s the guilt of feeling disappointed.
You’d never wish death on anyone let alone them and yet, here you are, wishing they could just get on with it.
But the reality is that they haven’t been the person you knew them as for a long time.
They’re here but they aren’t.
They’re alive but they aren’t living.
