Seventy-nine pounds.

One hundred eight in late October, and today just seventy-nine.

Down twenty-nine pounds in six weeks.

Sky and I spent the whole day with Jacquelynn on Thanksgiving. Ten hours, broken only by taking the pooch for a couple of walks and running to the gas station for snacks. Jacquelynn slept almost the entire time, but she knew me and smiled as she ate what little she was able to.

But I wasn’t going to miss spending our last Thanksgiving together, just as I won’t miss Christmas if she’s still here for it.

Which seems unlikely.

Down twenty-nine pounds in six weeks.

While there is still familiarity and comfort in my company, I don’t believe she has really recognized me since Saturday, although there is still familiarity, as though I was an aide or nurse she was comfortable with, but no bright light and smile of recognition. No kisses or strained, barely understandable “I love you”s.  Nutritionally, Jacquelynn is only averaging a single serving of yogurt each day, plus whatever juice she’s willing to drink and the pudding they mix her meds with.

I’m no Ferrigno, but I can lift her easily when I need to move her in her bed, so I asked that she be weighed (which happens the first week of each month anyway), and the nurse called me today as I had asked to tell me she was down to seventy-nine pounds.

Down twenty-nine pounds in six weeks.

Selfish as it seems to me, I’m struggling mightily this week with impending loss. My family and friends all remind me that there is no way to truly be ready for this; that all the preparation in the world can’t prevent the event from crippling you when it occurs. The only thing to do is allow myself to be human and feel what demands to be felt, to flex like the palm trees in the face of the hurricane, bending so as not to break.

I can only hope to avoid the break; to be stronger than I feel, because to be honest, I feel as though I’m already broken. Like I’ve been broken so many times and glued back together so many times that the crumbling just can’t be stopped anymore.

The pieces are just waiting to fall apart one last time.

But I’ll pick them up again, and with some help, put them together in the right order. It barely seems possible now, but I know I will. Life isn’t done with me quite yet.

Even if it is just about done with Jacquelynn.

Down twenty-nine pounds in six weeks.