Genji’s Butler

(part 2 of 2)

It is impossible to put into words how difficult this is for me. I need to be here, but I also feel like he’s slipping away and I may not get the opportunity to see him – if he’s put in hospice care I’m not sure he’d be allowed to travel out here once Butterfly leaves the cocoon.

My mother tells me that he’s in no immediate danger and that maybe he’ll be allowed to come home once they have the pain under control.

I think that last phrase is the worst part for me- I was prepared to hear that he’d died of a stroke or a heart attack not that he’d linger for a year or two in pain towards the end as vital organs are consumed by the out of control machinery of biology that is cancer. I know that it’s hard for my mom to sit there and watch- when I talk to her on the phone sometimes I can hear the exhaustion and the suppressed anguish. At least, she has something that she can do- even if it is sit there and hold his hand, bulldog the hospital staff, and take him decent meals. From here, there is nothing that I can do except call him regularly and make sure that Mom doesn’t need anything that I can provide.

All of this tempers the joy that I feel when anticipating our little girl. In some ways, it’s good- when tasted, the bitter makes the sweet all that much sweeter- but I’m worried that sometimes it comes off to C as ambivalence.