Learning To Love You More
HELLO ASSIGNMENTS DISPLAYS LOVE GRANTS REPORTS SELECTIONS OLIVERS BOOK

 ASSIGNMENTS:

 

 

Assignment #31
Spend time with a dying person.

Erin
Sunshine Coast, AUSTRALIA

REPORTS:

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Person: My papa
Date: sometime in 1994, I was 10
Where: His house
My papa was dying for 6 years. He had kidney failure. He always had this beautiful black hair, even when my Nan's hair went grey he still had this full head of shiny black hair. I remember knowing he was really sick when his hair started to thin and went white. He got really skinny and he didn't smile so much anymore. We weren't really allowed to play with him so much because he became fragile, but sometimes I would be allowed to lie quietly beside him in bed. I remember the sound of his oxygen tank while he breathed. The skin on his hands was so thin and felt unnatural. He had a funny smell, that sick person smell. I would cuddle my Papa and he would tell me a story. He never had to read stories he always just told them, about his life, about people he had met, things he had seen. Then one day he went to hospital and never came back.
I cried for my Papa for the first time since he died 10 years ago when I wrote this.
Looking back I never really understood or appreciated what my Papa must have been going through. He must have known he was dying. I truly wish I could have gotten to know him better.