When I write this, I know, I have no one left. Even the man whose flesh and blood I share, my father, is fading away in a hospital bed, rotting while I stand powerless. And the craziest part? I didn’t come all this way for him. I didn’t come to stand before my mother’s tombstone.

I came for you.

One more time, I wanted to be in your arms, to hear you whisper that everything will be okay, the way you did a thousand times before. I remember you at my mother’s funeral how if you hadn’t been there, I might have done something that would’ve erased this version of me, the one writing to you now. But you were there. You always were.

That’s what breaks me. You were always there until you weren’t. After two years, I saw you again, and my heart shattered. I’ve never seen you like this, never seen you so lost. I didn’t even recognize you. It feels like I’m losing two men. one to cancer, and one to something I can’t even name. And I’d rather die than stand by, useless, unable to save you. I’d give anything, anything to pull you back from whatever abyss you’re sinking into.

But you won’t let me. You won’t even look at me the same way. You speak to me like I’m a stranger, like I’m someone who once meant something but is now just another ghost passing by.

You know me. You know how madly, desperately I love you. That’s never changed, not for a second. And all I ask. just one chance. Let me stand behind you, even now, even when I am breaking under the weight of my father’s death. Because you are the most important thing I have left. You are my only family.

Don’t turn away from me.

I know I can’t save you, nor bring you back to something you no longer see, but let me stay, let me break with you, if that’s all that’s left.