More letting go

It's 3a.m. and I wake abruptly for no apparent reason. I have a cold, and realize I have been sleeping on my back with my mouth open for some time. My tongue is shriveled and dry, and the roof of my mouth is coated in....I don't know what. Ick. I swallow uncomfortably and take a sip of water from the cup at my bedside.

As I lay down again,I immediately think of him, and of swabbing his mouth out. Why so morbid? Perhaps it was the hour. No telling, really. In any event, I could see the swab - a marble-sized synthetic sponge on the end of a short metal stick, kind of like those wire things used to dunk hard-boiled eggs in dye at Easter. The sponge is pink like Pepto-Bismol, or like cotton candy.

I picture dunking the little sponge in a cup of ice water, and then running it over his cracked, open lips. Another dunk, and I administer a little bit of water to his dry tongue. His breathing is loud but not yet labored. His eyes are open just a crack.

"You can talk to him. Tell him it's OK. He can hear you," encourages the hospice nurse. Oh Dad, I sigh silently, I hope to God you can't hear me. I hope you're not aware of any of this. Tears sting my eyes, and I grudgingly croon to him. After I finish with the water, I look more closely at him, making sure he isn't in need of more morphine (that will come soon). His skin, thin and tight across his cheek bones, still has some color to it. His barrel chest rises and falls evenly.

But I check his feet. The infection has been in him for a couple days. "Feel the bottom of his feet once in a while," they told me. Apparently, when the body begins losing its battle, it willingly sacrifices the extremities to keep the main organs and brain oxygenated. His feet will be the first parts to go cold.

For this moment they are still hot, and I am both thankful and disappointed. It is all so unfair.

Back in bed, last night, my cold makes my own body hot and clammy from head to toe. It takes a long time before I can let him go, and return to sleep.