We no longer talk about the future beyond a month or so. Practically speaking, we don’t know how Brock will feel day to day or even throughout the day, so we live in the moment and don’t plan too definitely.

And there is always that knowledge that he won’t be part of the long-term future, of my future or our son’s. But also, I feel like I’m losing my future too. When he purged his book collection, I purged mine too. We’d lost that shared vision of a house with a huge library and there was no point in my holding on to books that were good but not good enough to be worthy of long-term storage.

It occurred to me the other day that, when Brock dies, the last ten years of my life will die too. There is no one else to share those memories and inside jokes and little references with. Every movie we’ve watched together or conversation we’ve had has created this language of shared experience, and I’ll be the only one speaking it, with no one to talk to who will understand. The phrase “she’ll do,” for example, has hilarious connotations only for us.

I’m about to lose ten years of my life and my future all at once. This is why “grieving” is a long-term stage. I’ve been grieving the decline and loss of my best friend for almost two years now, and the horror of it will only get worse.

What makes it harder is that I can’t really talk to my best friend about it, because he’s the one who is dying. He’s losing his future and past literally, not just in an abstract emotional way. I have the easier road. I can’t let the sadness take me down, because my responsibility and role is to help him through his and be his champion. It is a privilege to do this for him. I will enable everything that makes him happy and gives him peace.