Just No

My dad has been calling out for his best friend, Dirk.
He calls my mother by another name.

My mother seems to also be in my anti-sleeping-stress-mode.
Not sure how much longer she will be able to manage physically.

This morning, my father came down with a stomach bug on top of everything else.
He eats next to nothing.
Doesn't move.
Isn't really here anymore.

 
I will never hear his outrageous stories of going fishing at the Durban Aquarium in the 70s.
Or laugh again how we climbed over the walls of the public pool to gather lychees by the bucket loads.
We will never sit, cracked up,  in the dining room of the Splendid Hotel in Annecy, joking about how the super-dry air conditioning that supposedly turned my mother from a spritely 18-year old into a wrinkly old lady overnight. 
We laughed so much that morning that I think the husband was embarrassed (were you, love?).

And I detach, detach, detach.
And feel guilty about it.

We're on this empty bus, and we don't want to go where it's taking us.


.