Mother, daughter or wife you die a hard death alone.
Motionless on her side. Unblinking eyes turned to the cold wall. A white coat pauses at the foot of her bed, studies her chart but won’t look at her. Turning, heels click away on the polished floor. Laughter rings out in a corridor full of warm lunch smells.
Cannot breathe, cannot call for help. There can be no help now anyway. Too tired to cry and too old to care. Starched white sheets are cold. Bitter taste and dry lips. Wallpaper pattern could be a face or a map. A familiar face, a country. The monitor bleeps slowly.
Blue blouse wheels in a trolley. Leaves it in a corner, fresh bed linen piled high, ready. Flowers in the window. Outside airbrakes powerful hiss. Heartbeat, twitch, breathe, try...
03 June 2005
Dying is hard
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10 comments:
Indignity, indignity, indignity
was this meant to be ?
I don't know, I despair,
is there humanity out there ?
I don't know...............
that was so powerful and so sad. the last line bleeded into some inevitable ending. from where i come from, familial ties are so tight. so this made quite an impression on me.
Transience - Love hurts and I remembered that death hurts too.
It makes me sad. It reminds me of my grandpa, whom I saw moments before he died. He tried to talk to us about a neighbouring farmer whose barn burned down, and cracked a couple of jokes, but he knew the end was close. He knew, because he'd been in the hospital many times before this last, and it was only on this occasion that he said, "I have no regrets. I had five fine sons, and fifteen grandchildren. It's all a man could ask for."
When we got home, the answering machine was flashing. He had died moments after we left.
I wonder what his last thought was.
-A
Argus - my mother died a few years ago. She was told she had lung cancer and only lived 10 days following the diagnosis. She said to me "I'm going to fight this." But there was no fight in her.
I guess you don't grumble when you've had a long fulfilling life. We all must reach that time one day. Later rather than sooner let's hope.
I rember when (and how) my Mum died. It was long, drawn out and agonising to watch. That sounds pretty selfish I know ("...agonising to watch"), but it was.
:(
Kenny - not selfish I don't think, I'm sure the agony you felt was more for her suffering than yours.
Thanks so much Flea, this one sneaked in under the radar! You can tell my musical tastes, although wide (-ish) do not extend to Michael and Ridgeley!
I tried to keep this deliberately short, like her remaining minutes on earth.
So intense. You have a way of making me pause and think about the important things in life.
Jen - dying is so devastatingly lonely it seems all the more important to fully commit to a friendship while your friend is still alive.
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