This has been a good visit. Dad seems almost completely well, if a bit tired ("Is a balloon still a balloon without any air inside it?") and bothered by pain in his arm. He walks far more slowly now than both me and my Mom. All three of us went to see the cancer doctor this afternoon. The news was good: his PSA is failing to rise so far, despite six weeks free of chemotherapy.

We are the same distracted, mildly anti-social, mostly-happy family we have always been, still arguing over matters theological in public places. And yet we are hanging over the abyss by the smallest of threads. Just because the thread has failed to snap in three years does not mean it is any less of a threat, and yet that is exactly the illusion we are enjoying.

Spending time in the waiting room is a surreal experience—for many reasons—not least to feel the rushing undercurrent of denial which runs through my head at all time, insisting that me and my Dad are not like the other poor, doomed people sitting in the chairs beside us. It is also disorienting to see the medical words I've learned only in the context of Dad's treatment bandied about on clocks and refrigerator magnets, like some kind of amusement park, always strange places in their way, made more so by imagining one with the objective of making death cheerful.

The sky turned from blue to white today. It was so sudden, and so complete a change from every other day since I've been here, that I could hardly believe my eyes. How could such a thing happen all by itself, and without anyone's permission? On a related note, why is it that the sky in dusk is always an ever-deepening shade of blue, even if it was overcast before the sun went down?

Also, why are things so much sweeter when we are about to leave them?