On grieving someone still alive.

You are watching someone you love die slowly, and there is nothing you can do. When they sleep or they're unconscious, you feel relief. When you're apart, your own life continues as if it hadn't been interrupted. And then there are those sly moments of genuine joy — the unwanted ones, the ones that sneak into your days and nights unexpectedly and flood you with guilt.

When you're with them, you want to leave. Every time the visit is over and you're leaving, it's a relief. A silent, private relief that you don't dare share.

You're grieving someone who hasn't died yet. You cannot grieve yet, because death hasn't arrived yet — but you are grieving. You have probably been grieving for weeks, or months, or even years. You want more time with them, and you want all this to be over. You want both, now.

You feel repulsion toward them. You're repulsed by their shrinking body, their smell, their dimming eyes, their dry lips. This, you definitely cannot share. Nor the guilt you feel about it.

You have thoughts you haven't told anyone. I don't want to come back here. Thank God the visit is cancelled. I hope this call is the one. Why can't they just die. I'm a monster.

You are not a monster. These thoughts are not a reflection of who you are. Everyone in this has had them.

This protocol was built for this. It won't fix anything. It will make it possible to survive it.