Tuesday, March 22rd, 2016

The conversations had while waiting for someone’s death share a golden rule with improv comedy — always say “Yes, and…” to keep the show from falling silent. Silence isn’t fun, and you try to make jokes. It is surprisingly successful.

Tom hasn’t woken up since Friday’s surgery, and there have been two surgeries after that. We’ve done as much as he would have wanted, and he’ll be moved to “pallative” care tomorrow. I wish that was a word I didn’t know the meaning of.

This whole experience has been a lot of waiting, a lot of sleeping in chairs. A lot of hospital-lobby fast food. A lot of saying anything to keep the conversation moving. I’ve played a Gameboy app I download to my phone. We have HGTV on for Tom even though he can’t hear it, probably.

I begin to make a list of all the sounds in the hospital to fill the waiting.