With three weeks to go, I'm starting to feel the ore travel angst.

I guess it's compounded a bit by Dad's illness. The drugs that were meant to help with his mesothelioma ended up giving him terrible side effects - lack of appetite and severe muscle wastage. He is awfully thin and unable to walk more than bed to couch. He's definitely finding it tough yet there's still hope the medical team will get him stronger for a round of chemo or whatever else they offer. I have to admire him for persisting. I would have wilfully shuffled off by now.

When we ask if we should be going, he insists. What's the point of staying, he asks. I'm not doing anything but sitting round. That's true. Plus, we have said all we need to say to each other, and as far as a good life together as father and daughter, we have had a damn good run. Surfing, yoga, hiking, sharing laughs. I'll carry him with me forever in the same infinite space we all move through.

Yet that doesn't change the logistics of what happens should be go when we are travelling. I guess even if we are in Senegal or Iceland it won't take me too long to get home to help out Mum for the funeral or be there for the last moments. Everyone keeps telling me this. And I've spoken to many people my age who have lost parents, some when they are overseas.

As we have tenants I won't have a house to come back to should that happen, but I do have a van, so this week I'll be packing that with a mattress and clothes and things just in case I need to live in when I get back.

There's also bank cards to sort out, bags to weigh, bills to switch over, the garden to sort out further, and so on. I'm definitely one step at a time, writing lists and making sure I get rest time.

But there's also this rising anxiety as I navigate these last weeks. I come back to my breath again and again. As long as my centre holds here, I will cope.

What keeps me going forward is the promise of grand adventure, and my father living vicariously through it. It's like this great responsibility to live life because he can't. I guess that's just our lot as the living - breathing for those who are no longer.