August 28, 2016

STILL NOT TIME

STILL HERE, STILL HERE

From long ago, a serenity long lost.

I felt, as I woke Segev's brother and sister, that I was teetering on the brink of a precipice.  I thought that I had come close enough to my son's death enough times, to stand firmly on my own two feet. But I felt unsteady as in the midst of a severe storm, not buckling but oh so unpleasantly buffeted and pummeled. I thought, 'a few more hours' and that soon I would be consoling my eldest and middle child and they would be consoling me. So I woke them as they tried to find rest after they had helped during the night, assisting in emergency care for their brother who was barely able to take breaths and whose oxygen level, despite hours of constant chest compressions, ambo bag, IPV and suction, was hovering at 62%, having been stuck for some time as low as 50%.

August 17, 2016

So many miles we have crossed.

I am an old man now. Not in my mind, of course. But all the same, for eighteen years I have been fighting one crisis after another, each day. One more time to prove that life is here to stay for as long as the moment will carry. I breathe and so must he. There is no quitting, until the end overtakes us. And all that is, has been just and each moment has been weighed and those things, those moments, those accomplishments will never succumb to what is less. The endless nights of dawn, the turmoil, the anger and the lack of respite. If he can do, so can I. Perhaps less, certainly much less than once, humbled to know that less is forgetful and looking for pleasantries, groaning and no longer jumping from bed to treat, placate or save but to drag aching bones and confusion to the fray; but with a breath and a prayer, always, always into the fray.