This Evening (again)

one of my favorites of the many photos of Dan that his friends have been posting on his Facebook page

Rise and fall. Rise and fall. We sit in the living room watching the rise and fall of Dan's chest. We look up from our books or magazines, our laptops or our phones. We all have something we are doing as we wait, yet we all see the changes and ask one another, is the breath more shallow? Is he breathing faster now? Was that a pause?

Hum of the fan. Hiss and sigh of the oxygen machine.

A little later we set up a bed in the front hallway for Dan's oldest sister. Ready another bed in the garage for a dear friend from the Bay Area who has decided to come back down. I pull out blankets for the other sister and her husband who will camp out on the couch. My mother, thank god, has gone to bed. Every time she tells me I have to be strong or hold it together, I say, no I don't. That I'm just going to go ahead and be sad. 

Hum. Hiss and sigh. Breathe in. Breathe out. Dan's breath now seems more like...like what?

At least we are well fed. When my friend E called and asked if she could come, I told her yes. Yes, please, tell me what we should eat, I said, and help me with my mother. She brought the fixings for chili, and sat in my mom's room with her for quite a while. She sat with her at dinner, and stood over the iPad with her afterwards reading and taking about something.

Now the rest of us sit, transfixed--and then not as we go back to reading or scrolling or typing. We sit breathing, waiting for Dan's last breath. So many "lasts" have already occurred. They stole by us, unannounced. No fingers on the strings of his bass. No more walking. No "Hi baby." No singing. No kisses. Better not to know, perhaps, when the last of these things occurs in anyone's life. How would we bear it?