Remembering whose death it is

It doesn't always take 6 months or less. Sometimes it takes longer.

It sounds great that they are living longer than expected, but I should not forget that in that amount of time, they have still been slowly dying. The difference is that you don't notice the change from day to day, or week to week. It's a lot slower. You have to look from month to month.

Next month it will be 1 year for E.

E. used to follow me with her eyes. She would grumble if my hands were cold (a consequence of traveling from home to home in the winter). Then about 3 months ago, she would just open her eyes and then go back to sleep. This last week she didn't even do that, she just remained asleep.

One of her caretakers asked me if I had noticed any change in her status. I told her about the sleeping through the visits and the very minor changes, but had to admit, I hadn't seen much change. She asked me, "Don't you just wish sometimes that she could just 'go' and have it over with?" The caretaker said this with sympathy for E. Feeling that month after month of mostly sleeping and not being aware of your surroundings had to be a tedious, agonizing way to die.

Is it? I don't know. As far as we know, E. isn't in any pain. Maybe she is dreaming an endless dream, interuppted only by her Nurse cares for the day. Maybe the goings on around her add a backdrop to her mental weavings. Maybe it is all black and there is nothing. There is no way to know at this point.

When it takes along time to die, it's easy to forget whose death it is. The family and friends start to feel the ancipation of the end wear on them. It is exhuasting to wait and watch, and there is this cycle of emotion that you keep going through. Happiness that you have a few more momements, despair because those moments aren't with the 'person you knew before', exhaustion from waiting and anticipating and planning, and guilt for wishing it could be over with already.

I hope for E.'s sake that her life is not the tedious, angonizing death that it is for the observer picturing what it might be like. I hope that if death is what she wants, it comes to her soon, for her sake.