Note: this is an excerpt from An Ordinary Death: Where Grief and Relief Hold Hands, available from Amazon.com.
I was planning to go ahead and sleep in my own bed tonight, since my body clearly longs for good and deep sleep. But my brother emailed and said that mother was clearly getting worse. I made a snap decision to go ahead and come back here for the night and probably several days to follow.
Our night nurse is here and before she had come, the hospice nurse had come and administered the first dose ever of morphine along with some more lorazepam. Even with that, Mother is very restless and I am concerned about what she is experiencing. She is also not conscious, not able to respond to me or to others.
Her breathing is sporadic. She stops for 30 seconds and then will start again. Larry said she’s been doing that all day. Kidneys very much shutting down. All the normal process of the body saying goodbye.
So, I sit here and ponder the mystery of death. The body at this point is essentially a mass of barely living tissue that stills needs proper care. I’m watching the night nurse and Larry, my brother, move her and shift her around to ease some of the pressure on her backside, where the flesh is getting too tender and starting to show signs of impending of bedsores. Those we very much want to avoid. She’s been rolled from side to side, shifted around in the bed, pull sheets changed, and her eyes stay half closed, her countenance unresponsive.
Where is she? What is she thinking? Where is that quick functioning brain of hers? How is the Spirit of God caring for her at this moment? Where is her soul? How does it stay intact as the body shuts down?
So many questions. So few answers. Larry has headed to bed. I need to, but just can’t leave her right now.
So, I shall sit here, and just be. That’s all I can do. Just be. And remember to breathe.
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