This is the first time somebody is dying in my close family where I am old enough to be an adult about it.
One of my sisters died when I was about twenty. I was living in Switzerland with my dad, and it was terrible to hear my mom crying at the phone, practically unable to tell me what had happened, to then see my father confused, shocked. I booked a flight for him but didn't go myself. My mom was living in Portugal with my two sisters. I wasn't there for my sister's burial. People had to be buried within 48 hours, back then. I don't know how things are now. There was school and stuff and I had not lived with my sisters for a few years. I didn't feel very close. It just felt weird. I didn't know what it was supposed to mean.
Now, thirty years later, my stepfather is dying. His kidneys are failing, his liver is failing, his lungs are filling up with water, his heart is failing; they can't give him his heart medication because the kidneys are at their limits, can't have him move around because he's weak, and so he's breaking down. I mean, he's calm, he knows what's happening, and he's very, very tired. He's ready to go.
I think that in my heart, I know that this is how it works. We have to go one day. I don't want to spend the last hours hooked up to machines. I'll be very, very tired. I'll just want to go home. I also won't want anybody around me to be sad. Hopefully, I'll feel that I lived a good life, that I had a good time, that the people I spend my time with were decent people, worthy of the short time I was given. I hope that I will be able to let go and be at peace. It's what I hear about my stepfather.
But when I sit in that family video call, with siblings in Portugal and Germany and my mother, and one after another people start crying, choking up, it's hard. It's that invisible choker, grabbing us, one after another.
I need to remember the good times, the conversations we had, the laughter we shared. I need to book a flight and see the rest of our family. All that independence and all that living abroad is coming back to haunt us, now.
To go and support each other.
Go and hug your loved ones.
#Family
There were so many tears. A step brother, a half-brother, a half-sister, my sister, my half-brother’s wife, their kid, my mom… the kid was the only one that seemed unperturbed. “Don’t be sad, grandma!”
Later the funerary services came to pick up the body. Again, both of them super nice. We’ll see how things go, tomorrow. My mother is not feeling well. I seem to be doing OK. I can be strong when it’s not my partner that has died.
I’m happy we were all there for him, singing songs, bringing him his birthday cake (he died on his 78th birthday). I’m happy we were all there for each other.
I still remember how I met him years before my mother met him. He lived across the river alone with his son, wild and free and I was so jealous. I wished to live like that! And then my parents divorced, my dad went back to Switzerland and a year later I followed him and got to live wild and free like them, it was amazing. And one day I came back and there were rumours that our mother had found a boyfriend. Imagine my surprise when it was him, the wild and free guitar playing dude from across the river! And eventually my friend from school turned into my stepbrother, moved in with my mom, lived in my room. It was mysterious and magical and then to see him and his father struggle with my mom, the changes they brought about, it was a miracle.
So, my man, wherever you are, here's to you and your last trip, to your guitars and flutes, your love of music and freedom, your spirit of independence and love of people and aliens. Cheers! I hope to see you again.