September 14, 2003
It did not feel real to me until we actually got there and I saw here struggling to breath; only able to move one arm she would alternate between putting it over her head and laying it across her chest. There was a small cart of sandwiches at the entry of the room; it was put there by the nurse who knew the sequence of events that would occur.
Her breath was a painful background, and her face was marked with her struggle not to panic, not to be afraid. Never one to complain even after hip and knee surgeries back during a time when they were less sophisticated - never one to complain even after fighting off pneumonia multiple times in her 80s - never one to complain despite losing the ability to read, write, and hear converstations (her favorite things) - she was crumbling, and she would look up at whichever face was nearest and try to say something. Unintelligible to us, we interpreted it as 'water' and gave it to her on a sponge; a few times it sounded more like 'help' to me and I struggled to hold it in.
The nurse who spoke with us was calm and followed procedure: a little dose of a strong pain killer, and then a morphine patch, and then a stronger dose of morphine up until the body relaxes enough to let go. She was the one who gave us distance and calmed us down, and she was the one who was actually there when she passed.