I try to pretend it's not happening, even though I can watch it right before my eyes, and I had no idea my brother was really as ignorant about it as he is.  My dad is dying.  He has ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease.  It's the same disease Stephen Hawking has.  (Incidentally, my dad's name is Steven.)  It's a motor neuron disease that is irreversible, and eventually terminal.  My mom doesn't talk a whole lot about the specifics of it unless I ask, so if they have an idea of how much longer he's got I don't know.  I'm scared to ask.  I'm also scared to look it up and find out.  Basically, you gradually lose the use of your muscles until you just can't survive any longer.  It can either start with trouble walking, or like in my dad's case, a subtle slurring of speech caused by the inability to control the muscles in the mouth and throat as easily.  Whichever way it starts it eventually gets around to the other.  They're really not even sure what causes it.  He was diagnosed two years ago.  He pretty much can't speak at all anymore.  It terrifies me how fast this has gotten to this point.  He's losing weight so rapidly, because it's just so difficult to eat.  They had to put in a permanent feeding tube into his stomach that he has to hook up to a pump at night while he sleeps.  Basically the same concept as an umbilical cord.  He also wears a mask at night to help him breathe.  A lot of times when he's napping on the couch or just sitting really still watching tv I find myself looking really closely to mke sure he's breathing.  We were only just able to get the breathing machine, which he should've had ages ago, after I had to call 911 the other night while my mom was at work because he came downstairs and told me he couldn't breathe.  He's 5'11'' and weighs 115.  I'm a girl, 5'4'' and I've pretty much never been that light that I can remember, and I've never been a real heavy girl, except pregnant.  You can count every rib, every vertebra, his hands look like basically bones with skin stretched over them.  It used to be "Daddy can you open this jar for me?"  Now I'm opening things for him.  Sometimes I'm his interpreter when we're not at home.  He writes things down usually, but he's also got this computer that speaks for him if he types in what he needs to say.  Sometimes I know what he's saying anyway, just from listening, but it's very difficult.  He always at least tries to speak on his own first, though most of the time we don't understand.  Dads are supposed to be invincible.  Yet I've watched mine go from invincible to frail and weak in just two years.  I keep seeing things and thinking, every time my baby gains a new skill, my daddy seems to lose one or come closer to losing one.  Really the only thing they can do for him is treat his symptoms as best they can, and try to slow the progression of the disease.  Keep him as comfortable as possible.  He can still walk, and I sometimes catch myself wondering when he'll need a chair, and if medicare will pay for it, and is this hereditary?  I'm not sure they even know.  I'm scared to find this out too.  And something else I started thinking about a few weeks ago, I want to eventually get married, and I want my dad to take me down the aisle.  My guess is he'll probably be in a chair by then, or at least using some kind of cane.  And then I wondered about the giving away part where the father's supposed to say "her mother and I" will he use his machine to say it, or will he let my mom say it instead?  I don't know. 

Anyway, we had some drama here at home tonight that my brother started, using that machine to make some really awful jokes about Stephen Hawking.  He's 14, I don't think he really grasps the situation, but it really upset me and my mom.  I don't know how dad felt about it, if he even heard it, but the rest of us were just torn up.  And so Mama finally let him have it with the "Don't you get it your dad is dying" speech, and when she came downstairs crying and she told me what was wrong, I went up to his room without saying a word and, in his own words, "started whooping on" him.  I'd've called it pummeling.  Several punches to the shoulders and back and a slap across the shoulder blades.  I know I shouldn't have, and it upset mom even more, but I just couldn't handle it anymore.  Keeping all this in all the time, it builds up and builds up, it's been months since I last let myself really cry about my dad, and my brother's behavior was the trigger it took to make me snap.  When I snap like that I get a little violent(usually this only involves throwing things and slamming doors), and it makes me feel terrible afterward.  And I went back out on the porch and let myself cry, and I only just stopped a little while ago.  I'm not sure I want to sleep tonight.  I don't know, I'm just sick and tired of everything turning to crap.  I just want something to get better for a change.  I love my dad so much and I'm so scared...