Dad

He's so ill. He's so ill that he can't talk, can't walk, doesn't eat.

He can barely breathe. I watch him. I watch him, when he thinks no one's looking. I see how he pauses, as he turns the kettle on. How twisting a tap causes him to gasp, and then lean against the counter. It takes him over half an hour to shower.

And he grimaces, and makes a joke out of how useless he is.

And I remember my dad. The dad I grew up with. Who played squash twice a week, tennis for two hours on Sunday afternoons. The dad who took me swimming every Sunday morning, who encouraged me to swim 104 laps, to say I'd swum a mile when I was ten years old.

He told me to argue, to question, to be a pain in the arse.

And now he can't even breathe enough to tell me to stop being a twatty blogger.

 

And I can't stop crying.