Changing Roles

Alone with him in his room, his eyes closed, his breathing slow, I became mesmerized by the rise and fall of his chest. A precarious balance was sustained between life and death by this slight involuntary movement. Suddenly his breathing became irregular, his eyes opened wide and he took in quick gulps of air. I held the oxygen mask over his mouth till his body relaxed and his head sank back into the pillow. He smiled and held his eyes on me - glazed expression, weary resignation - then closed them again. I picked up my book as though to read it, but it just dangled from my hand, held there only by the weight of my thumb on its spine. I was studying his form, frail and wasted - so much of him was already gone. Skin, grayed and translucent, covered his face like a fine parchment pulled thin and taut. Excess skin hung from his neck and arms as though he was shedding his old form. I watched him breathing in and out in and out in and out. Tense guardian over his breathing and the electronic blip-blip of his heartbeat, I was overwhelmed. This was my father. He had carried me in his arms and sat up in all night vigils when I had had polio. Now I was sitting by him alert to the in and out of his every breath.