Score: +2

There’s no set timetable for how long my dad has left. He says he wants to see the total solar eclipse in 2017, and I admire his optimism. I don’t know what to expect of the future. Anything is possible at this point. I’m on temporary leave at work. They are all wishing me the best in this difficult time. I can’t focus on much but the conflict between sadness and sanity. Our whole family is coming together tonight for dinner and it is going to be fun. We are a good little family. It’s hard to imagine it without the patriarch. He was our rock. When he goes, who will hold us all together? Who will I talk football with all winter long. Who will I go to for a pep talk when life gets me down? I’m going to miss him so much. I fall apart thinking about life with him gone. But I must be strong. For my family, so that they will trust that I am a rock too. For myself, because I believe in who I am more strongly now by being tested with great suffering. I look back at you from behind tired eyes, sometimes lost in the darkness of an uncertain future.