Clinging on for dear life

"We don't get to do anything. Just have to wait. It's really hard, but you just have to go about your life and do everyday things; go to work, do your laundry, clean the house. You know, just try to keep your mind off all the horrible things that might be happening to him. And you do that, for a week or a month, or maybe a year... Welcome to the outside of the disease."

-- E.R., Season 9, Episode 15 (A Boy Falling out of the Sky)

The waiting -- for me, at least -- is always the worst. Minutes stretching to hours -- it's awful. I used to bring a book to read, but I realised that it was too difficult to do so. So these days, while I wait, I walk around -- but not too far that I'm out of reach of the intercom system. I make about 10 trips to the vending machines in under an hour; over and over, just pressing the buttons: Milo, snack, Milo, snack. I wasn't hungry.

***

Dad was brought into the hospital today. It's been two years since he's had a relapse, and we thought we'd seen the worse of it. Tonight, he was more frantic than all the other times he's made this trip; I don't know why.

"Don't desert me, okay?" he said through the tears. Why would we? "Daddy loves you." I love you too, Daddy.

"Just cling on to Jesus," he muttered in his sedated state. "Cling on to Jesus... Cling on."

To the nurse, he sounded like a madman. To me, it was everything. In a million years, I could not ask for a better Dad.

I'm clinging on for dear life; I'm not letting go.