“Daniel...” my mom says to me from my doorway.

I twist in my chair away from my monitor, away from some TV show I’m watching.

“I’m not feeling very well,” she adds, “so I’m going to go to sleep now.”

“Okay. Good night.” I go back to watching my show. ‘Not feeling well’ could be anything, physical, or mental. I don’t think twice about it.

It seems impossible that my dad could become more idle than before, but my dad has done it. He still only lives on his bed or his couch, and I can’t identify one particular physical feature that points to his continued downfall, except to describe it as it’s like I can see the youth leaking out of his body and pooling on the floor beneath his feet. I look into his eyes, and they just seem hollow; like that of a baby’s, but without any of the hope and wonder.

There’s a point in life when every time you go to a hospital, you come out weaker than when you entered. My dad has clearly long crossed that threshold.

Even with my dad back home, the house still feels eerily quiet. And yet, even an eerily quiet house with my dad feels like it contains more energy than a house without him.

Some of it is my mom, who perhaps has anxiously been awaiting my dad’s return so much, she finds any way possible to interact with my dad and attend to his needs. Or at least, the needs she thinks he has.

“John, wake up,” I hear her mumble in their bedroom. Silence, before she tries again. “John?”

“WHAT!?” my dad growls back. Ah yes, we truly are back to normal.

I’m chopping vegetables in the kitchen when I hear a loud scratching sound, and then a thud. I run to the source and see my mom on the floor in the hallway, trying to get to her feet.

“What happened?” I race over and help her up.

“I tripped.”

I see my guitar case is no longer leaning next to a chair where I left it. I guess that she must have hit it on accident and fell. It was out of the way, but I guess not out of the way enough, and so I immediately put it in my room where there’s no chance of her ever hitting it again.

This is what I know: My mom wants to be my dad’s caregiver; she has always chosen to do it. She doesn’t want to send my dad away, even if I think it’s better for him—and for her. It’s her choice. But there is something I can do, as her own body ages and mental strength wanes: I can bring the nursing home to us.

This puts me into motion and gives me the purpose I’ve been scrambling to find. I make a list of things that my mom needs to take care of my dad, as well as a list of things that she needs removed from her day-to-day life that will just give her anxiety—things like finances.

Grief has to be the most lonely feeling in the world. It aches, hurts in places you didn’t know existed. It makes you want to cry and you have no idea what specifically trigger it. And then on top of that, you know that even if you feel sad, you really shouldn’t feel lonely. You probably have your closest friends around you, waiting to hug you and never let go no matter what. Which makes it worse.

It’s also super personal. I guess all extreme emotions are personal, but unlike something, say, joy, grief makes everyone else uncomfortable. We all know what to do when someone else is happy. You laugh with them, give them a hug, cheer them on. You celebrate with them, and by doing so make the situation even more joyful.

What do you do with grief? Nothing. Everyone knows what it’s like to lose something, but no one knows what it’s like to lose the specific thing you just lost, that thing that was so special to you in a way no one can truly understand.

My dad has been in the ER several times over the last few years. I've been away from my family for those years, so I’ve gotten equally as many sudden calls reporting that news, and each time I wonder if “this is it.” He’s fallen. He has some kind of internal bleeding. There’s blood in his stool, which is such a formal way of describing it that the juvenile in me would rather laugh and just say there’s blood when he takes a dump.

Each time it’s always serious. Each time, it’s never the end. I don’t think this time is the end either. I’m trying to practice accepting things as they are and considering maybe one or two steps ahead, and not worrying about the worst possible outcome. I’ve never had to rush to the airport, jump on the phone just to say my last words, or do anything that’s a race against time.

There are ghosts that ask if that somehow disappoints me.

I wonder if this is what our relationship looked like in reverse, some twenty years ago. My mom holding my hands as she clips my nails. Standing over the … And kneeling down to be eye level as she evaluates my mouth for cuts.

“Are you okay?” She’d ask, while I breathe heavily and try to nod. She may have been upset with me before, she may not, but either way, in the moment, she’d care most about cleaning my cut upper lip, puffing up and bleeding onto my teeth.

“Tell me if it hurts,” she’d say, as she dabs a cloth in some water and lightly presses it against my lip.

“Amen,” my mom finishes saying grace at the dinner table, and stands up.

My dad and I begin scooping food onto our plates while my mom pushes her chair back, stands up, and walks back into the kitchen. The TV is on, blaring the news which I’m trying really hard to ignore because I hate most broadcast news. It doesn’t occur to me that she’s still gone until it’s been at least five minutes, and I turn my head around see my mom washing the pans and any plates I used to cook.

“Mom!” I yell, “come eat.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

Panic.

That’s the emotion pulsing through my blood and radiating off my body. Rapid breaths. Raised hairs. A heartbeat that almost seems audible.

I just got home and walked inside expecting to trudge to my room for an afternoon nap. It’s blazing hot outside, I’m drowsy, and afraid I might not make it to my bed.

But then I noticed something peculiar. My dad wasn’t on his couch. Fine, but he keeps a little basket on the coffee table next to the couch, which is where he keeps a number of things important to him: his keys, wallet, some pens and pencils.

The basket is empty. It’s only ever empty when my dad leaves the house. When he leaves...the house, I repeat to myself.