The Prayer I Never Thought I’d Pray
There is a sentence I never thought my heart would be capable of holding.
I want my father’s suffering to end, even if it means losing him.
Even writing those words makes my fingers hesitate. They look cruel on a screen. Detached from context, they sound like abandonment. Like love has run out.
But love has not run out.
Love has simply changed its prayer.
For weeks, I prayed for miracles. For scans to be wrong. For medicines to work. For one more treatment. One more opinion. One more day where he would sit up a little longer, eat a little more, smile a little wider.
Then cancer taught me a language I never wanted to learn.
Now, my father sleeps almost all day. He opens his eyes only briefly. We crush his medicines and mix them into a spoonful of liquid diet because swallowing has become a task too heavy for his body. He wakes for a few sips of water, answers my questions in monosyllables, and drifts back into sleep.
Sometimes, in the quietest voice, he tells me he wants this to be over. That he wants to go.
The first time I heard it, something inside me shattered.
I didn’t tell him not to say that.
I didn’t tell him to fight.
I didn’t ask him to be strong.
I simply sat beside him and said, “Yes, Papa. I am asking God to take you away.”
If you have never watched someone you love disappear one slow breath at a time, you might misunderstand that sentence.
You might think I gave up.
The truth is, I gave up on his suffering.
There is a difference.
Caregiving changes you in ways no one prepares you for. You begin by counting medicines, monitoring blood pressure, measuring fluids, and celebrating every extra spoonful of food. You believe every small improvement is the beginning of recovery.
Then, somewhere along the journey, your hope quietly changes shape.
You stop praying for more time at any cost.
You begin praying for peace.
Because love, at some point, has to ask itself a difficult question: Am I holding on because they still want to live, or because I cannot bear to let them go?
I still tell him the same things every day.
“Papa, I’m here.”
“Mummy is here.”
“You’re not alone.”
I don’t know how much he hears anymore. I don’t know if he recognizes my voice every time.
But I hope he feels it.
I hope somewhere beyond the exhaustion, beyond the fentanyl, beyond the sleep, beyond the failing body, he knows he is loved.
There is a strange guilt that accompanies this stage of caregiving. You feel monstrous for wanting the end. Then guilty for hoping it doesn’t come today. Then guilty again because you don’t want tomorrow to bring another day of suffering.
Grief begins long before death arrives.
People call it anticipatory grief. I call it loving someone while losing them in slow motion.
If you’re caring for someone at the end of life, and you’ve found yourself whispering a prayer you never thought you would pray, I want you to know something.
Wanting someone to be free from unbearable suffering is not the absence of love.
Sometimes, it is love in its most painful, most selfless form.
And when my father’s journey finally ends, I know my last prayer will not have been a prayer for death.
It will have been a prayer for mercy.
And sometimes, they are the same thing.
Riddhi Tomar is an aspiring writer and family caregiver whose experience caring for her father during his journey with advanced cancer inspired her to write about palliative care, caregiving, and dignity at the end of life. Through her writing, she hopes to foster greater awareness and compassion for patients and their families.
Originally published: The Prayer I Never Thought I’d Pray – CopyThatRiddhi
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