Thursday, January 19, 10:00 PM. Amy.

Brewer collapsed this morning.

He’s been active the last few days and seemed to be doing much better. Yesterday he moved the cows and led the kids in mucking out the barn. We were both beginning to hope that whatever it was was going away. Serves me right for hoping.

What is so troubling about his collapse is that it came out of nowhere. It’s not like he was carrying feed or getting up too fast. He was just standing there, leaning against one of the porch columns, drinking his coffee. I was sitting behind him drinking mine. I had said it look like it was going to rain. Half a minute passed. Suddenly his head fell forward. I thought he had seen something on the ground, a mouse perhaps. Then he crumpled, folded up onto the ground. He got coffee all over himself, it was steaming off of him.

I ran over. He was twisted in a strange position. I tried to wake him, tried to pull him straight, but he’s too heavy for me and he wouldn’t rouse. When I saw how slack his chin was, how completely loose he was, I was afraid he was dead. But half a minute more—it felt like ten minutes, truly—and he groaned loudly, opened his eyes, then unfolded himself painfully. After that I held him and cried. He lay there opening and closing his eyes.

I helped him get back into pajamas and to bed.

He slept until three. That’s not normal. I kept checking on him.

When he finally got up he looked better than I expected. No pain. Still groggy, but cheerful and coherent. He couldn’t really remember what happened. He kept apologizing, and I told him not to.

He played boardgames with the kids, still in his pajamas, while I made supper. He was smiling and joking and seemed almost his old self. But I noticed he kept fumbling for words, obvious words like “card” and “points” and “round.” Trevor asked him to pass the dice, and Brewer looked at him like he had no idea what he was talking about. The dice were cupped in his hand.

We’ve decided to tell the kids on Sunday.

Tell them what? That their father has cancer? In a way it seems premature. It may not be cancer. Yet how will we ever know whether he has cancer or not? We’ve kept a lot of old technology going but I’m not about to try to operate an MRI. The word “cancer” has almost ceased to be useful. It points to a diagnosis we can’t make and treatments we can’t apply. What’s the point of saying it to ourselves, much less to the kids?

So what do we tell them?

That he’s very sick? Certainly. They’ve surely noticed that he doesn’t feel well and is resting a lot. Before today I don’t think they’d ever seen him in pajamas between 7 in the morning and 9 at night.

That he could die? I’m not sure I’m ready to hear that myself, much less say it to them. And yet…what would be kinder: to hide a painful possibility from them or to give them time to prepare?

I just don’t know. I’m hoping Brewer feels up to explaining it to them because I don’t know how I can.