I just spoke to my father for what will probably be the last time. 
He didn’t answer; there was just the sound of the respirator. Or something.
My mother held the phone to his ear and I held my phone to mine. I didn’t realize at first that he couldn’t talk back.
When my father was born, talking to a dying relative from 10,000+ miles away would have been an impossibility. Now it’s so simple.
But that didn’t make it any easier.
My family keeps vigil over him in a Toronto hospital. I drink hot cocoa and have three empty cookie wrappers on my desk. I will soon go to sleep.
Will they wake me when he dies? I don’t sleep yet. I don’t cry. I don’t do the heavy-lifting of being there.
But I am now the family strong-man.
little birds