The whole point behind me doing this is as a form of journaling I suppose. I cannot make myself write in a diary because the pen seems too heavy and I cannot record myself because I do not want to hear the pain in my voice. My 70 year old father is dying. And no we are not all dying-that is bullcrap. When one is able to confidently make plans for next year, five years down the road,etc. then that person is not dying. That is such baloney. Sorry it makes me angry. It minimizes the loss and in it's own turn rejects a person's pain. In this case my pain. Yes, I know we all die. It does not make my father dying any easier. Yes, I know others have had no father or lost theirs younger, blah, blah, blah. I am grieving the dying of my father. No-one else's. I know that life is not fair. I have reminded my clients of that. Still the little girl inside wants life to be fair. Life being fair means that a good man does not die a painful, long death. One of my father's greatest fears has been dying in a hospital. He used to say that he relatives who went into the hospital never came back out alive. So where is he now. In the hospital, and no he is not going to come out alive. It is not the hospital's fault. My father is dying from a combination of the affects of diabetes and renal failure. He has decubitus which means that anywhere a blood pool forms (like where they check his status, give him shots) his body starts to rot due to lack of blood flow. It rots from the inside out and large rivers of dead tissue form and fall off. It is very painful, and my stoic father has recently shared that he has little tolerance for pain. My father who did not even squirm when the car door smashed his thumb so that his nail feel off. My father who has fallen so many times and never winced. This makes me want to cry for him-to protect him from the pain, to draw it away. I cannot. He is on pain meds but they want him coherent so they raise them when changing his bandages but otherwise he is always in some pain. I saw his wounds almost a month ago. I wanted to see them so that I could see reality. Face reality. They are big and very ugly. They smell bad and are like shallow pools all over his body. Have you ever burnt yourself with a three degree burn and watched it build back up-all the different layers. That is kind of what it looks like. He has lost a lot of weight and his skin sags where he used to be. He is still my handsome daddy though. I love him very much.