Waiting.

I feel like I'm living inside my phone.

Let me just say to you, this man is like my father. This man is my father, has been my father in place of a man who just fell short.

We fought through everything that came before. But I don't know how we're going to get out of this one. Neither does anyone else. One thing no one has ever heard in the voices of my family is doubt. But it's there now. Or the opposite of assurance, determination that everything is going to be fine.

And here the fuck I am. Halfway around the world. I'm not taking my shift at the bedside, slowly edging my grandmother toward the hospital room door, assuring her that taking a shower won't shave fifteen minutes off of his life. I'm not standing over the sink cleaning the dishes while the nighttime window fogs up from steamy water, the meal that my family had together. I'm not sleeping on my aunt's bedroom floor, curled up next to my cousin -- both of us too big and old to be doing this, because we believe it will stop us from having bad dreams.

I'm pacing an empty apartment clutching my phone and trying not to disturb much-needed sleep out of anxiousness. I'm scrubbing the same spots on the floor again and again just to have something to do with my hands, and because I'm used to keeping a house for five people when something like this happens.

Tomorrow I will wake up (if I sleep at all) and do those 108 bows. It's not so funny anymore. I'll put all of my heart into them, every ounce of a plea for mercy I can muster. I'll clean my house because I can't clean myself and I can't get rid of anything I think could mean The Universe could say no to me this time. Because that's the only thing I know to do. It's the only thing I can do, from here.

I feel like a child, because I have only childish thoughts. I want to be with my family. Why can't I be with them? My heart is breaking.