"Tears on my pillow, pain in my heart, over you..."

I cried myself to sleep the other night.

I haven't done that since right after the wake and I was still in Cali. And it was the same reason: the vision of my dad, in the hospital bed. It coated my eyelids like a horrifying whitewash. I laid there feeling the tears spill down my cheeks, unable to strip the vision from my eyes.

It's bad enough, that I see him swollen, his arms covered with blood rashes. He was so swollen he looked more like the Michelin Man, than my dad. His eyelids forced closed by the weight of the fluid in those thin flaps of skin. The line around his thick, sausage fingers where his wedding band was. My mom got it off just in time, she said. From the size of his fingers...I think it might have busted the band in two if she hadn't taken it off in time.

Bruises criss-crossed his face, giving his stretched features a blue tint. He lay there, the machine forcing his chest up and down with jarring mechanical movements, like a bad Halloween prop that will shudder slightly before dropping into position.

Four IV towers held 30 some odd bags of chemicals and fluids: all going in, nothing coming out.

The constant electrical audio simulations of beeps and boops and pings. Blood pressure, oxygen, heart rate, respirator speed, all chiming just over the sound of air pumping into his chest. The regular rhythm of "electric life" split by an alarm on one box or another. Out of fluid, levels too low, time to change a bag.

I sat up and held my eyes open wide, my own chest heaving with the sharp intake of air. I flipped my wet pillow over and tried to close my eyes again. Trying to change the channel in my mind to something that would let me get the sleep I so desperately need.

Its been over two months since he's been gone. That's nine Sunday phone calls he wasn't on when I called my mom. Of course I've been calling my mom more frequently these days, and when she isn't there, my dad's voice answers the phone. I pause to collect myself before I leave my message, clearing the lump in my throat.

I'm going to go back to Cali in August. It will be the second time I'm in 'their' house. I keep saying "...my mom and dad....er...my mom." Adjustments, small changes here and there to adapt to this new life. A life that has been completely changed forever.