My father is a skeleton man, flesh stretched tightly over knees and arms, his cheekbones too sharp in his face, creating little shadowed hollows beneath them. He has always been tall and thin, but not like this, like some holocaust survivor released from a camp. Except for his stomach, which seems swollen beneath his shirt, where the cancer is. His skin is yellow now, from the tips of his fingers to the tops of his ears, even his eyeballs are tinged with that shade because his liver is failing. He looks old, so old now, and it happened so suddenly.

And just as suddenly, it hits me that he truly is dying this time. Sitting on the couch beside him, curled up with my head resting against his shoulder like I am that six year old child again, his arm around my shoulder and holding me tight, I close my eyes and try to lock this memory in my head forever. Just the two of us, the rest of the house going on a smoke break.

It breaks my heart when he starts talking, when he tells me that sometimes it hurts a lot, that sometimes he doesn’t think that he is going to make it to my birthday, which is about two weeks away. “But I’m trying, I’m trying,” he tells me. He’s trying to hold on to my birthday, for each passing holiday is a success of survival, each holiday means precious life.

I wanted to start crying then, but I didn’t. And now, all I can think of is how scared he must be, knowing that he is dying, knowing that after all of this fighting, all of this trying, his life is ending before him and he can’t do a thing to stop it. Just sit back and wait, wait for it to happen. I keep thinking about how scared he must be, how fucking lonely it has to be. Because there is no one around him that can completely understand, no amount of hugs and kisses and tears will make it go away.

Like the Donnie Darko quote: “Every living creature dies alone.”

Now it is my father’s turn, and it isn’t fucking fair.