On Sunday, my father flatlined. Twice. He's been in the ICU since Sunday afternoon. I spent nearly seventeen hours with him that first night, from five-thirty in the afternoon to ten in the morning on Monday. When I got home, I showered, slept a few winks, then got up, dressed and went to work. Because through all this, I refuse to miss work. Not because I love UPS all that much, but rather because the routine there keeps me from breaking down. It's a harsh reminder that life goes on, dying father or no dying father. The boxes won't wait, and the movement around me distracts me. It's what I do instead of getting drunk, in other words, and this way I get paid doing it, too.

I'm glad I wasn't there in the hospital when 'Apa died. It kills me that 'Ama was, though. She's still scared half to death, even though 'Apa was revived by the ER staff (twice, bless them) and is now awake and acts almost back to his goofy, attention-seeking self. I told her that she needs to go with me to see him tomorrow after she gets out of her first job, so she can see that he really is doing a lot better. I mean, the last she saw of him was him lying limp on the stretcher while four nurses and a doctor buzzed around him plugging him up with tubes and hooking him up to sensors and god knows what other machines while his pressure just kept dropping lower and lower. I got there just in time to be told that his condition was very bleak; that his liver, kidneys and pancreas had stopped working alltogether, and not to expect much, but they were gonna try. That feeling of being a small child came flooding back into my veins all over again as I watched my father all through the afternoon and night. I could hear screams of agony, pain and fright all through the ER, along with the awful sounds of squelching, splattering, gurgling and gasping of the wounded. I remember this one man in particular: he sounded as though he were underwater, trying to scream. That was the sound of him choking on torrents of his own blood. And I mean torrents, because I saw his prone, spattered body as I walked by him to get 'Apa a glass of water. I don't know if he made the night, but I hope he did. It all makes me shiver, even now, sitting here in the relative quiet of my room.

Several times during the night, I thought my father was a goner for sure. He looked like a skeleton, with only his pallid skin to cover his bones. During those times I'd walk over to his bed and stroke his lank hair in the dark.

*grunt* Ridiculous, ain't it? It all happened then and now's when my body's barely reaccting. I think typing this all down's making me go over the whole experience slowly, analyzing the details I had missed in the rushing blur. I can't stop myself from trembling, and my eyes threaten to well up. He just looked so small...