Can you look a dying man in the eye?

How do you look a dying man in the eye? Especially this dying man. My Uncle. He has cancer. Lung cancer that had moved to the brain before we found out. I think it was the Monday before Super Tuesday. February 4? You said he was sick, but...lunng cancer, moved masta-what, moved to the brain? WAIT! not yet. So you go visit the first break you have. Spring break. Spring? A time for renewal. Life? Living? What would you want your last conversations to be about? When he talks shit (one of the best shit talkers ever) about Hillary AND Obama and tells me and my cousin (his daughter) that we are gonna have a mess (paraphrased) either way. It will be our problem. He won't have a president. He's about to kill off. After he goes to spend some time with my father, his daughter, and watch my brothers graduate (this May). He's going to kill off. He shoots from the hip. He's telling the truth. What do you do when you come to visit? What do you offer? Support...comfort...something else? He does not want your pity. I respect him. Everybody thinks the medicine and treatments have him delerious and disoriented. I'm sure it does...I don't think that's the only reason he paces. He says he has stuff to do. He gotta get out of here. They think he's too disoriented to leave. They don't listen to what he says. We don't want him to go. He's not as disoriented as they think. Some of the delerium is them. He doesn't want all the treatment and medicine. He told me when he can't go off his own juice, then he doesn't want to go anymore. No extra blood. He don't want that fucking horse blood, pig blood, or whatever other kind of blood they want to give him. Some of the delerium is him. LOL. Not that though, he likes to make us laugh, and he doesn't trust the doctors, but he likes to make us laugh. This dying man has always been a straight shooter, he always calls a spade a spade. He's tough. Always has been. Always had to be. He told the people from the Hospice to keep the fuck away. "I know you have a job to do, but I don't want you around here." You don't know him, you should. I only know him as my uncle, I know of him some otherwise though. Maybe in a later post. For now he's dying. About to kill off. I think he paces only partially because his electrolytes are off. Death is stalking him. He won't lay down. He won't pray it takes him in his sleep. He will stay up, and wait for it. He will look death in the eye. Unafraid. It is hard for me to look him in the eye? Maybe he is reflecting on his life. He lived it. He talks about my dad. Talks about education and how his father stressed the importance of it how he wanted all of his kids to be able to have it; how my father, his younger brother, was first in the family to get the opportunity. He worked hard so we all could get an education. We talked about where my baby brother might go to college. We talk about my grandfather who never got to see my father graduate from college. He doesn't think he'll drive all the way to DC for my older brother's graduation from college. Maybe he'll fly. He should make arrangements. He's proud of us. He has to kill off. WAIT. There is so much more we will do. You aren't proud of us yet! We owe it to you. NOT YET! I graduate from law school next May, what about that? I want you to be proud. I am enjoying these talks, between the pacings. I didn't want to sleep at all while i was there, because...I have to go. I have so much to do. I'm in law school. I can't spend more than a couple of days with you? What do you say when it's time to go? This goodbye could really be final. Goodbye, though it may be appropriate, somehow doesn't seem like enough. There is so much I want to say, do, I want you to know...too much...I want you to talk shit to my husband, I want you to scare my kids...the one's who aren't like us...the one's who scare easy...I will tell them the story...you know the time when you shot Santa Clause? The effect won't be the same if they dont' know you. If they haven't heard your voice. Saw how you laughed as Uncle Dennis and Uncle Morris reinacted the story. Their faces had to look to close to the way they looked that night when you pulled up in the yard on Christmas Eve and shot in the air, and came into the house and announced that you had shot Santa. Their faces. Who does that? I thought it was funny. I am your protégé. They will be missing out. There are no more you's, but if you have to kill off...I love how I still get to think of you the same way. You won't lay down. You won't sleep. You will look death in the eye. Some days you won't go to treatments. Good luck when it's time for the Chemo. They won't make you do, but so much. You are doing it for us. You aren't doing it for you. You want to look death in the eye. You are not afraid. Why can't I look you in the eye? You're through the roof! I love you.