My dad

My dad is dying.

My dad is dying. My dad is dying. My dad is dying. My dad is dying.

I've been practicing saying that in front of the mirror the way you'd practice your "hellos" before a first date. But it doesn't sound right. Or natural. Or possible.

"My dad died when I was 26." "My dad died last year." "My dad died ten years ago." "I wish dad were here."

It's not possible.

Maybe he won't die. Maybe medicine, and a respirator, and a team of doctors, and many dozen Catholics can work their magic. Today was better than yesterday. His lungs are clearer, and the MRI didn't show the spots on his brain that were there yesterday. So maybe it's not a stroke. But I feel like I should be prepared. Just in case.

But people have already started dropping off pies, and casseroles, and soups. In case. In case my mom has to go home to an empty house when my brother, sister and I leave again. It's only when I see her hunched over the sink washing one lonely cup that it really hits me.

"Have you ever met a man who loved Thanksgiving more?" she asks. And I shake my head. He's so joyful when all his kids are home. He mugs for the camera, and dances jigs. He makes a big deal of tending to the turkey, hopping up when the timer beeps, and basting it with pride.

He cries at the end of "It's a Wonderful Life" and every year writes note tags on our Christmas presents from Santa. Each one gets a different hokey rhyme or little sketch. And if he dies, Christmas will die too.

He always said that if he were in the hospital for the holidays we should drape him in Christmas lights. I bought some. Just in case.

I wrote his eulogy on the plane. In case. I hope I never have to open up that piece of notebook paper.

My sister said the last time she talked to him, he fell asleep in the middle of the conversation. We laughed, because even healthy we're pretty sure my dad has low-grade narcolepsy. I don't think he's still ever seen the musical act perform on Letterman. He worked late when we were kids, and usually drifted off when he read us bedtime stories. We all read at a young age, I'm sure in no small part because our stories were always suspended, Care Bears yet to rescue the kid scared of the doctor, puppies left missing.

Long after we learned to read, we'd cuddle in the crook of his arms to have him read us the comics on Sunday nights. Per our pleading, he'd "do all the voices" of Calvin, and Snoopy and those damn Family Circus kids. I don't think any of us were ever amused at the comic itself, but giggled when my dad made his patented "tickatickaticka" sound tracing Billy's path around the neighborhood.

On Sunday afternoons we'd eat our sandwiches while we watched the Three Stooges. None of us kids got the comedy and he'd turn around and have three sets of eyes watching him closely to laugh when he did.

I spent last night in the hospital by his side, watching all the machines, praying they wouldn't beep, or would keep beeping, or whatever the hell they're all supposed to do. We watched the premiere of Saturday Night Live together too, him completely sedated and me curled in the chair. We both laughed the same amount. I told my mom that this morning and she said, "He has to get better, he'd love that."

I tried to keep myself from being the obnoxious family member, but kept pulling the overnight nurses into his room when things dinged and hissed. I winced every time they moved him. If I were rich I would hire a doctor to sit next to him and just stare at the numbers like we do. That would be their only job, because he shouldn't be another patient on their rounds, he's my dad. They should be there. Just in case.

The doctor told us yesterday that he was the patient in the worst shape on the floor. "Dad did always do things all the way," my brother said proudly. There was an odd twinge of pride too that it took three nurses to hold him down before he was sedated. A feisty one.

My dad fell off his idol pedestal for me a long time ago, but he never stopped being my favorite person. We share an outlook, and a sense of humor, and react the same way to things.

He can come up with names and details that nobody else remembers. There have been times when he wins Trivial Pursuit without other teams getting a roll. He and my mom have been banned from playing with some people. We were finishing a game one night and he fell asleep in a chair (see above) and we woke him up. He answered the question correctly and went back to sleep.

I keep thinking of what I'll tell him when he's better, but we don't leave things unsaid. He knows how beloved he is, so I don't worry about that. I just want more time with him, many selfish more years of peace and holidays and boredom and petty squabbles. Years to know him as an adult, to walk me down the aisle, to see grandkids. He'll be the best grandfather.

"I think Heaven," he told me when I was a kid "will be getting to meet anyone you ever wanted and sitting and saying 'Want to sit and talk for, oh, six years?' "

My father is a journalist through and through.

Maybe all the worry will be moot in the morning. But I know that there are a lot of authors and world leaders in Heaven who should be preparing to be chatted with for a good long while.

Just in case.