Dad's Hospice Notebook

His oxygen mask kept him from speaking, 
so they gave him a pen and a small notebook 
placed beside his bed. He scribbled words 
in order to communicate with us:

my mom, fifty-one, the same age as him; 
my sister, who was barely a teenager;
and me, a college senior, jealous
of what my friends were doing back at school. 

The breathing machine dried out his throat, 
which was raw from tumors and radiation.  
He could not eat or drink, but asked us
anyway for ice water to soothe him. 

Congestion in his lungs built up until 
he needed to remove his mask and cough 
into a pan someone held out for him: 
phlegm in dark-red globs, thick as pasta sauce.

Near the end, I stayed over in his room. 
I recall being frightened he would die 
while I slept, and I did not get much rest.
Eventually, though, I drifted off –

when I came to, he had fallen asleep. 
I looked inside his notebook and saw 
the word “water” scrawled on a fresh page. 
It broke my heart. 

Maybe he could not have swallowed any,
but I felt awful I was not awake 
to comfort him. For a long time after 
he died, I carried this notebook with me, 

                                      not ready to let go.