I never prepared for this

But then again, who does? Who can?

My dad is in the hospital. Three weeks tomorrow. Last weekend he nearly died from septic shock after somehow contracting pneumonia, a blood infection, and a urinary tract infection.

He was this close to being released. This close to being back home in his chair in the window. In his own bed. In his little garden checking for spring buds.

Now sometimes he doesn't even know who I am. His blue eyes stare blankly back at me without so much as a flicker of recognition. This morning he thought he was talking to his mother on the phone. She's been dead for 44 years. He was talking to my mom.

I'm not prepared for this.

The staff seems nonplussed by his confusion. They brush it off and hint vaguely that it should go away once his body finishes fighting so hard.

His brief moments of lucidity keep me sane. But they're few and far between and until we get definitive word from his ever-elusive doctor that this will go away, I can barely breathe.

Three weeks ago tomorrow was Thomas' birthday. We spent it in the ER watching my dad gasp for breath in the morning, then cleaning up the mess the paramedics made of my mom and dad's house in the afternoon.

I'm not equipped for this.

I'm just not.