Your loved one still exists. On the long road you now walk alone, you have unseen companions.

I found my Dad. Even though my mother was wrapped up asleep next to him, holding his hand which was still warm from their love.
I knew I would. I knew the day and the time he would die, the same way I knew he was going to die. Yet despite days of sleeplessness and exhaustion, of watching and praying, when he took his last breath, the whole house slept.

The cancer in his lungs had caused two bouts of severe apnea that had nearly ended his life so the district nurses (whose care and compassion was a true gift from God in those last desperate weeks) gave use a baby monitor so that we could keep a close watch over his breathing as he slept.
The cancer in his lungs and spine meant that he could no longer use his arms. Instead they would shake and jerk about in the strangest way. I would spoon feed him rice pudding and hold his cups of tea and coffee to his lips while he drank. I would stroke his silver hair and kiss him on the forehead. In the days before he died, he cried out, "I want my boy, get me my boy" and my brother would pick him up like a baby and try his best to put him at ease while Dad's body twisted in pain.

On the day he died he was given the Last Rights in the Afternoon. My brother held him up and my dad reminded me of the image of Christ when he was taken down from the cross. His eyes were rolling in his head and his body was jerking, but he was conscious and ate the communion they gave him. It was all at once beautiful and agonizing. I was suddenly so filled with anger at his suffering that I had to leave the room. I had realised that he would be put into a wooden box when it was all finally over. The thought of it made me rage inside.
He lost consciousness that evening, although his body continued to twitch and writhe. His breathing was strained and I sat with him and stroked his forehead like I always did and told him it was okay to rest now. It's okay, Dad. You can let go if you want to. You don't have to fight anymore. Rest now.
At around 8pm I went for a nap. In the final days there is no sense of time or reality. I slept for a while and when I woke up my mother was getting into bed next to Dad. She said he seemed to be breathing better and it looked like he might have a restful night sleep. I was so relieved that I could go back to sleep. I took the baby monitor into my bedroom and slept to the sound of his breathing.
I woke up at 4am. I knew immediately that he was gone. I checked the baby monitor, which was silent. I walked quietly into their bedroom and there he lay; white and bloodless. I never imagined a person's lips could turn so white when they had always been so pink. I touched his forehead and it was cold. Trust him to sneak away into the night as we all slept. It looked like him, but wasn't him. It was like a waxwork model, an empty suit of Peter Conroy. His eyes were open a little and they were dry and glazed like marble. No light or life inside the vessel. A suit he wore. Oh Dad such an awful thing to see you lifeless. It haunts me still.

I woke my Mom as gently as I could. I didn't want to frighten her. She said I was wrong. How could he be dead when she was there the entire time and was still holding his hand, which was still warm. Then she looked at him, his glassy green eyes and she believed me. I woke my brother.
While we waited for the funeral people to come I sat with his body and began to sob. I pleaded with him to wake up. Wake up, Dad. Come back. Please. I don't remember who guided me away when the men came to take him, but I remember my sister-in-law holding onto me while I howled.