I’m not doing too well with not smoking. Yesterday I had 10 in the 19 hours I was up. I’ve only been up for 3 hours so far, but have had 5. Like I told Tom, the only way I could ever quit smoking would be by force. Of course, I’d have constant panic attacks and the cravings would never go away. It’s totally swapping one misery for another. Tom said it’ll be a better misery that won’t last long. I disagree. A good 95% of the time it’s not a better misery, nor will I ever stop constantly wanting to smoke.

I think in the end, the only thing I can do, and the best thing I can do is just wait and see if I can get pregnant in the first place, then just let Tom force me off. I can’t go jumping the gun and worry about the future or this soon-to-be pregnancy that I still believe can never happen and will never happen.

Tom says his dad’s gonna die now to a couple of days from now. The nurse gave him sleeping pills over 24 hours ago and he still hasn’t woken up. They say he’s in the final phase of this kind of cancer and that there’s some name for it too, that Tom forgot. Anyway, he’s expected to never wake up. His lungs are so filled with fluid that they make this horrible gurgling sound when he breathes, which he can barely do.

Tom said he also opened his eyes for a second as he stood over him and his eyes were white and glazed over with the look of death, so he’s pretty much gone.

Later…

Dad’s gone.

Mary called at 3:30 to say that Dad stopped breathing and they called the hospice nurse to confirm things, then the funeral home will come and get him. They had gotten plots for both Mom and Dad in Chandler, but Dad will probably be buried in a VET cemetery in Phoenix cuz he was a World War 2 vet. After Ma goes, of course, she’ll be buried next to him. Phoenix is running out of room for burial plots due to the way Phoenix has grown. I had asked Tom if there’d eventually be no room to bury people on this earth, but he explained to me how land gets re-used. After a couple of hundred years, the bodies and coffins deteriorate.

Tom says he’s glad it’s finally over and I agree. Now he’s not suffering anymore, and the stress will be lifted off everyone. Tom says this is the easy part. Especially since he, like everyone else, knew this was coming. He says it was the part where everyone’s stress and his ongoing suffering were hard.

We both also believe that although his body is dead, he’s not dead. His spirit will always watch over those he knew.

I’ll call Tammy in a little while and let her know.

Later…

I called Tammy and she said tell Tom she’s sorry and that she sends her best.

Andy also called saying the same thing and that all kinds of things have been going on in his life over the last month. He said he understood that now wasn’t the best time to get into it and I promised to call him late tonight.

He knows I do want to hear all about it and that I haven’t forgotten him, but I’m getting pretty beat now. Tom knows to wake me up if he needs me but told me there’s nothing I can really do now. There’s nothing anyone can really do now. It’s over. But it’s not over with his mother. I still firmly believe it’s the beginning of a whole new long and drawn-out process. This is cuz I can’t see how things will be as simple as just setting his mom up with whatever she needs and then she’ll be on her own. I still feel that there are only so many things she’ll need that we can set up for her. Meanwhile, someone’s got to take care of the things that aren’t just a matter of being able to be set up for her. Someone’s got to mow her lawn. Someone’s got to drive her wherever she needs to go until and unless there’s a service that can drive her around, and I know it’s gonna be mainly Tom that’s gonna have to do all this stuff. Except for Tom and Mary, all the other family members don’t do shit unless they’re asked. They don’t just volunteer and Ma hates asking people for favors unless she really has to and I know she’d prefer asking Tom first and Mary second.

I did another fairly decent drawing of a girl. I tried to draw more, but luck ran out.