There’s never enough time

There’s never enough time, when you want to tell someone you love them.  You forget to when they leave in the morning, or when you drop them off.

Then something happens…

And time stops.

Time has stopped for Spitfire over a year ago.  For the last year, she has been slowly watching her father degrade and slip further and further into terminal decrepitude.  (Hah! Never thought I’d use that phrase from A Distant Soil)

A once proud, strong man, who had provided for his family, is now barely able to sit up to use “the commode” (that’s toilet for you not of British origin).   He is lapsing in and out of consciousness, is weak and unable to show any strength in his grip, and the whimpers that he makes over the baby monitor are disheartening to hear to say the least.

Spitfire refuses to go on voice with me when she has the baby monitor.  I don’t blame her.  Just hearing it once, I was in tears for her.

Spitfire’s father’s willpower is the only thing that is keeping him alive.  Sheer determination to stay alive one more day.  Stubborness.  And more.

He’s a fighter and doesn’t want to give up.

Sooner or later, the time will come though, and then Spitfire, and the rest of her family, will mourn, and they will realize that even though this was an agonizingly long process, there was never enough time to say all the things they wanted to say to their patriarch.

Like I wanted to say to my patriarch before he died.

I won’t go into the details of my grandfather’s death, either of them, but I wish that there had been more time with each, especially when I was a youngster, and able to sit on their knees.

But there’s never enough time.

Sooner rather than later, Spitfire’s world is going to crash around her, worse than my world crashing down around me nearly three months ago.  She will mourn.  She will bury her father.  She will pick up the pieces, and carry on.  I hope she’ll be strong enough to get through everything without me.

Or strong enough to tell me when it happens, so I know.

Or brave enough to go on without her father.

Her mother will also have to go on without her husband and the father of her children.  I hope she’s strong enough to do so.

Spitfire, I love you, even if I don’t say it nearly as often as you do to me.  You have kept me going this year or more, time for me to shoulder some of your burden…