Larkin

 Today I am waiting to see if my dad dies. I think many people do this passively and I have for some years now. Today this waiting feels active, lively and very present. 

He didn't have a good night, my mum and sister were asked to consider if treatment should be withdrawn. he picked up, better blood pressure, better saturation, but not really awake. He has been close to the end before, once he in fact chose it and it didn't work. Since that time he has been quietly and doggedly determined to not let VHL win.  My sense was that he has insisted that his life, despite what others may think has value and he wants to live. There is a bitterness to this, an obvious frustration at the medical possibilities or, more accurately the lack of them. 

While I wait I guess,  I plan, I wonder, I think through the ways this might all go. It wouldn't surprise me if he fully pulls through, gets as better as is currently possible and gets back home. It wouldn't be a shock if he survives again, another almost medical miracle. 

but

Is today the day my dad dies and VHL claims his body more than it already has? No, because he never really let it win, he never allowed it to take some true parts of who he is.  And part of me feels a quiet sense that it won't be today, or this week, that his story isn't over.