I’m looking at a body lying flat on the bed. Pale, wrinkled, swollen. I don’t know this body. I don’t want to know this body.

A body that is breathing. Rhythmically. A familiar sound, at least.

In, out. In, out. In, out.

Sometimes the breath stagnates for a moment. Then stops. Half a minute, a minute.

Was that the last one?

We're sitting at my father's bedside. No, that's not true. Not his bed. One of those with wheels, cables and a triangle hanging over the head, so you can pull yourself up.

First it was a hospital bed. Now it's a deathbed. Names can change quickly.

We listen to this breath.

In, out. In, out. In, out.

I can feel how my breath wants to adjust. It wants to synchronise, wants to unite with all force. But the pauses are now too long.

You have to do this on your own now.

There is a magical silence. There is an awareness. There is a presence that I have never experienced before.

I’m monitoring the breath closely. I want to make sure that there is no last breath. That we can continue to be here together. Together in silence. United.

A little compensation for all the moments when we were together but were actually apart. For all the arguments and fights. The tensions and the smiling them away, the talking them away.

Bla bla bla.

In, out. In, out. In, out.

I’m filled with joy and gratitude that I can experience this moment. And only now I can see the longing behind it. How massive it has been. How it’s been driving me through life. Ready to risk anything, to give up everything. For a short moment of unity.

And how easy it could have been satisfied: to listen to someone's breath together. To be quiet. To be. To forget everything else.

So simple and yet so difficult. Someone has to die for that. Someone is sacrificing himself to remind us of that gift.

The machine that has been beeping constantly is finally silent. We know what that means. The numbers on the screen are now very low, the pauses between the rises in the graphs very long. But they still exist.

When there is another pause in between breaths, I stare at the monitor and imagine drawing another curve with my eyes.

A red light flashes.

Come on, one more, come on. One more breath. You can do one more. For us. For us as a family. For our peace. Come on, you owe it to us.

There's a body lying there, almost dead, giving us life. It's insane. Someone lies there and dies and brings us back to life.

Witnessing death and experiencing life.

Time stands still at this moment. The world outside too. Nothing other than the sound of breathing has any meaning now.

In, out. In, out.

The nurse enters the room and looks at the monitor. She closes the door quietly and carefully.

She is now someone else. She is no longer a nurse.

She no longer prolongs life. She simply lets it be, allows it to follow its own natural rhythm, this body. At last.

He now prolongs our peace. That's how it is. In his last moment he takes this power once more. In his last moment he takes the stage again.

Just like he used to, when he entered the room and all attention was on him. When his voice vibrated through the air and silenced everything and everyone around him.

Now we're hanging on his lips one more time. Who would have guessed so?

But no more poems come out of his mouth, no more clever sentences, no more opera songs. No harsh judgement.

Only the bare minimum. And the most real. Yes, that's how it is. I’ve never seen him so real, so genuine. No more costume, no make up, no lines.

He, the actor, is now the most honest among us.

He, who in the end suffered under the burden of holding us together, no longer has to do anything for it. It's all happening by itself.

At last it’s happening all by itself.

Someone should have told him that before. That he doesn’t have to try so hard. That it’s enough if he takes one breath at a time.

In.

Out.

And then it's suddenly over.

No, that's not true.

There is no end at all.

There's just nothing new after the exhale.

Like an endless pause.Waiting to be filled.

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