I bought a juice-bar Cleanser [apple & pear juice with ginger, parsley, and lime] on the way to Day Four at Hospice with bink and her dying dad.
bink's dad's pain and anxiety have been kept by meds to a bare minumum, so it's been mostly peaceful, and the long days give lots of transition time for everything to happen (so different from sudden death, like suicide or a car crash).
bink and I had sat and laughed with her brother and sister-in-law the other day; I wasn't here yesterday, but bink's priest friend came and annointed her dad, saying something about "being brave and safe and loved"; and her dad's old girlfriend came, who wept about how she'd "never see him again", and then went to play Bingo.
This is the third time I've attended someone's drawn-out, natural death. It seems to me this kind of long, slow dying allows people the chance, anyway, to get good and bored and done. And ready to let go.
The slowness of it can, at its best, work as a cleanser.
bink's dad is no longer rising to consciousness today, so we may not be coming back here again.
bink's dad's pain and anxiety have been kept by meds to a bare minumum, so it's been mostly peaceful, and the long days give lots of transition time for everything to happen (so different from sudden death, like suicide or a car crash).
bink and I had sat and laughed with her brother and sister-in-law the other day; I wasn't here yesterday, but bink's priest friend came and annointed her dad, saying something about "being brave and safe and loved"; and her dad's old girlfriend came, who wept about how she'd "never see him again", and then went to play Bingo.
This is the third time I've attended someone's drawn-out, natural death. It seems to me this kind of long, slow dying allows people the chance, anyway, to get good and bored and done. And ready to let go.
The slowness of it can, at its best, work as a cleanser.
bink's dad is no longer rising to consciousness today, so we may not be coming back here again.
My mother complained of having to brush her teeth. There, I did comment.
ReplyDeleteSPARKY: I feel that way sometimes myself:
ReplyDelete*Do I have to keep brushing my teeth UNTIL I DIE?* :)
It sure did get boring...but it really helps being done with it. Now if I could just get over my sleep debt. Thanks for being there with me.
ReplyDelete