My dad’s dying.  I always knew that it would come to this.  I knew that one day he would start to deteriorate and maybe just peg out.  Not wake up.  Die quietly in his sleep.  That would be devastating, of course and deeply sad.  But not as sad as this.

When I thought about this event, I never pictured it with a doddery, breathless old chap clutching onto the oxygen tubes that he now relies on.  I didn’t forsee the puffy, swollen feet and ankles that used to play tennis and walk and cycle for miles.  I reckoned without the dry breathless cough and the disproportionate effort that everything would take, even for him to get out of his chair.  I never imagined that he would have to have his toilet seat raised nor imagined - even three weeks ago - a time when walking would become a huge feat but one that he wanted so much to accomplish.

But more than that, I never gave a thought to the fact that it might just be my mum that would be the carer, when she had no right whatever to be expected to bear that burden.  Somehow, my dad’s plummeting health has realigned the pecking order so that suddenly mum’s not the one we worry about any more.  It’s dad.  Even though mum hasn’t improved at all.  Quite the reverse.  But it’s dad that’s overtaken her and he now is the vulnerable one.

And finally, I didn’t imagine the way that their flat would become a place of such gloom, where the air seems to be too tired to move and the almost tangible substance of old age and redundancy hangs heavy in the air.

It’s hard to watch.  My dad, normally so chipper and positive, trying so hard to keep the appearance going, despite the nasal canula, the shirt collar at a cockeyed angle and the hearing aids, looking as though they are trying to fly away from his ears.

I have a heavy heart.