Mourning...a voice

I am in a constant state of mourning. Waiting for that last shoe to drop. In seven years I've lost two crucial people in my life. Two beautiful souls called home. They were both over eighty, had lived long lives, and made a better world for their children as they left it. Though I miss them and mourn them, it is not their loss that cuts me at this point in time.

My father is dying.

Physically he is healthy. His heart is strong and his body able. It is his mind that suffers and decays. At first a few small pieces shriveled and died. The disease mutilating what once may not have been a perfect man but a good one. He is no longer recognizable. Every day, week, month he slips further and further away. How can a man, a law abiding man, one with principals and a pure belief in God suffer so at the end of his life. How can God allow him to become this shell...this aggressive angry stranger I no longer know.

He has been kicked from the home that my brother so painstakingly chose, to a drab, sterile, institutionalized hell. It isn't right. It isn't humble. Do not go quietly into that night...there is no quiet...there is no struggle...there is only suffering. Night...would be a mercy. We don't know how long we'll have to watch him suffer. Losing him while we wait for him to die. It's macabre and morbid. I don't usually wish for someones death...but my father if he knew himself...would hate this.

He punched a women in the face. A women! The man that raised me...though stubborn...though the fool when it came to women....never hit them. Never. He wouldn't. He saved my mother from a violent relationship. He didn't believe in violence. Though he would rise if called, it was never his solution to problems. He was more prone to yell than hit. I hate watching this. I hate feeling this anger towards my God.

I believe in things happening for a reason...What is this reason? Pain. Suffering. Am I to be made stronger...does my father really deserve this? I quiet my mind and wait for clarity. I am in a constant state of mourning...though he isn't dead...though I sometimes wish it. Death will claim all of us. I know this. I fight the fear and the reality everyday. I know my time is coming. It comes for us all. I concentrate on the living. I want to see my sons grow, marry, have children.

My father no longer recognizes his children. I am someone he knows. Someone he sees as family.

I am nameless.

God, what I would give to hear him call my name. I replay my grandmothers voice as she calls for me. Remember her smell. I no longer remember my father's voice as he called my name. He hasn't said it...in over a year.

The things we miss without realizing they are gone. A burst of smoke that evaporates too quickly. We can't hold onto it. One moment it is there...and in another...it's gone. Only the memory remains...or the emptiness of a memory. I wish I'd played his voice saying my name in my mind. I wish I could find it there hidden in the depths.

Fear follows. Will I succumb to the same disease that's claimed him? Will my children also miss the sound of my voice as I say their names...and worse of all...will this horrible moment happen....while I'm still alive?