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I try not to study your face or look at you. They tell me you’re awake, but your eyes are sightless – dead, open and staring. I wonder what they see, if they see anything at all. I wonder if they are preparing you for where you will be going. Each laboured breath grates across me. Your arrhythmic breathing keeping me on edge. Part of me hopes it will be soon, because I know you are suffering. Part of me doesn’t want it to stop, doesn’t want to let you go. This moment is cruel. You left me years ago, and I was left to wonder why you were gone. What had taken you away from me. I was only a child, too young to understand the strange ways that adults behave, and the complexity of their relationships. For a long time, I hated you, hated the name you gave me, hated the fact I could see your face within my own in the mirror. Even after we found each other it took a long time before we could understand each other. Therein lies the cruelty. To have finally reached that point; and now once