Alice passed away in a heavily sedated sleep, without pain. She did not believe in any god or an afterlife but when I quoted Khalil Gibran in one of my last conversations with her, it brought her momentary comfort. It comforts me to have shared that quote with her, when my own words failed.
Oh heart, if one should say to you that the soul perishes like the body, answer that the flower withers, but the seed remains. ~Kahlil Gibran
To those of you who read my post from last week, thank you ever so much for your kind and thoughtful comments. They mean a lot to me. Even though losing close ones to death is part of life and none of us are sparred, it feels good to get some good words and the wishes they represent.
This process is grueling, especially for Alice but also for the entire family. WP's sister has been taking on the majority of Alice's care but we had to force her to go home and rest because she is falling apart. Emotionally, she is extremely fragile as it is and prone to drama, so it's been difficult trying to convince her that she doesn't need to martyr herself and allow the rest of us to help out. This is no easy task.
Alice is haning in there. She's refusing morphine because she feels too doped up. This doesn't surprise me because she has always been a person who has to stay in control of herself. For this I don't blame her and yet her agitation is so severe at times that the hospice nurse strongly suggested that we had to find a way to make her take it. That was early this morning and though I checked from work, I dont' yet have a full report.
All I can say is that from my point of view there are both pros and cons to dying at home. What Alice has longed spoken of to me over the five years I've known her (a period in which she mostly enjoyed good health and a very active lifestyle) is that she believed in euthanasea for the terminally ill. I agree with her and it would be my own first choice if I could access it. Without that option, I think that it would be a very hard decision for me to make. The care of a dying person takes more than one person and it's round-the-clock. It's also very worrysome. But for Alice there has never been any doubt that this is how she wants to go. The family is respecting that but it's time to get in more help and make some changes so that she's not so aggitated and awake and aware every couple of hours. It's agonizing to watch. But all of us are being very strong. WP's wonderful daughters have been a tremendous help and a comfort to their grandmother. I'm proud of my family.
Won't say I love you babe Won't say I need you babe But, I'm gonna get you babe And I will not do you wrong Livin's mostly wastin' time I waste my share of mine But it never feels too good So let's don't take too long You're soft as glass And I'm a gentle man We got the sky to talk about And the world to lie upon.
Days up and down they come Like rain on a conga drum Forget most, remember some But don't turn none away Everything is not enough Nothin' is to much to bear Where you been is good and gone All you keep is the gettin' there To live is to fly Low and high So shake the dust off of your wings And the sleep out of your eyes
It's goodbye to all my friends It's time to go again Think on all the poetry And the pickin' down the line I'll miss the system here The bottom's low and the treble's clear But it don't pay to think to much On things you leave behind I may be gone But it won't be long I will be a-bringin' back the melody And the rhythm that I find
We all got holes to fill Them holes are all that's real Some fall on you like a storm Sometimes you dig your own But choice is yours to make And time is yours to take Some dive into the sea Some toil upon the stone To live is to fly Low and high, So shake the dust off of your wings And the sleep out of your eyes So shake the dust off of your wings And the tears out of your eyes ~ Townes Van Zandt
"When the Amherst sphinx styled herself a pagan, she meant she didn’t believe in the biblical God. What sort of deity, if any, she did believe in is hard to pinpoint." -- Gary Sloan, "Emily Dickinson: Pagan Sphinx,"
I believe that the images and writing posted here fall under the "fair use" section of the U.S. copyright law http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107, as they are intended for educational purposes and are not in a medium that is of commercial nature.
Alice
