Growing Colder

I've noticed something over the last six months. I've noticed myself growing colder.
My camera has begun to collect dust, as has my heart. I don't bother picking up my camera these days, because I know my images will be clouded by what I'm feeling, & by no choice of my own.
My father was my sun, air, water, earth. He was the gravity that kept me grounded & the smile on my face. My childhood was happy in large part to him, & being a naive child that was something I took for granted, not knowing that dad's die. How could dad's die? It seemed impossible.
My dad seemed invincible, even after the heart attack. I thought he could get through anything, even if it took just a little more time, or just a little more air to breathe in; I didn't mind sharing my air with him. I would have given anything, even the pencils and crayons that I so desperately clung to when I was a child. Even then, art was who I was.
We would sit & look at pictures together of us when I was only two years younger but I thought of myself as little. I was a big girl when I was small. At least, to me.
The first night I went to the hospital my sister was destraught. I had lost my love for art back then, & I can say with confidence that my heart was like a block of ice. I felt nothing, & I cared for nothing.
"He's going to die," I said plainly to my sister, making her cry harder. My mom looked at me with eyes that told me she had been hurt badly by my comment, & told me I had no soul.
I believed her.
Dad got better. He got better, but longed for his childhood home. He got better, but he was always a little sick, growing a little sicker by the day. Kirksville was what he really needed. Something about the air up there was different, he had always said. Sweeter, maybe. Tangier.
So he moved away & my little sister & I stayed. I discovered photography in his absence, & it melted the ice away. I was who I used to be, & he saw it in me. My dad always could see right through me, no matter how good I was at acting or no matter how angry I was at the time. He knew the real problem, & my dad was a handiman of the heart. He could fix anything that was troubling me, turning my heart warm again.
I feared that. I feared the cold. Most people don't know what the cold is really like; all they know is heat. I liked the heat that I was feeling, & it was coming from my dad's love. Like my own personal sun that revolved around me & my little sister.
But while my sister & I were away, my dad grew colder, too. Being home helped, but he was never truly satisfied without us there. & how could we be there? Four hours away seemed like an eternity. It still does.
I visited as often as I could; I tried to drive away the cold with the heat as often as I could, but it never was enough. I would always lose my temper, yell at my sister, stomp my feet & claw at my arms with razor-sharp fingernails. Only my dad would ever really calm me down. He knew what to say, even if the right thing to say was nothing at all. & most of the time, that was the right thing to say.

I never liked the way Death had taken a special interest in my father, & I was always proud to be the daughter of a man who had cheated death so many times. But you can only run from Death so long before you get too tired to keep running. My dad grew weary over the year of 2010. He grew tired and much, much older in the course of only one year. It was like he had aged fifty years.
He made repeated trips to the hospital, only to stubbornly check himself out because he was self-sufficient, & always so proud.
Life had taken it's toll, & Death was there to relieve him.
In an honest opinion, I think Life was more cruel to my father than Death was. Life repeatedly kicked my father while he was down, making him ill & angry. Death took him in His arms, singing him softly to sleep while creating visions of angels that my father repeatedly talked about seeing in his hospital room. His eyes would dart back & forth in wonder, taking in what I imagine would be the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.
& then it was over.
The room was quiet. No one knew what to say.
& on January first, 2011, Death stopped the show. Like always.
& since then, everything's grown colder. Like my sun has sizzled & burned out, & all I'm going on are memories of what heat used to feel like. A light burning sensation lingers on my skin, but will eventually sink in & let the cold take over.