Dying

Well, dear readers, it seems that with me, when it rains, it pours. Three posts in as many days that must be some kind of record!

Im writing this because I am sad. And not sad in the usual self indulgent way that I tend to be sad. I think I am sad for someone else, but Im not sure. On second thoughts, maybe I am sad for me.

Today I went to Bankstown Hospital and fed lunch to a woman who is dying.She is a member of my extended family- not actually a blood relative, but a member all the same. She is my cousin Adams grandmother. Her name is Roma.

I think we are actually the closest thing to family that actually comes and visits her. My cousin now lives in America. My cousins mother, her daughter, died almost ten years ago, after being in a vegative state due to a car accident when I was 3. She has two other grandsons, but she has no contact with them. She has two sisters, one who is as sick as her and cannot come and visit, and one whom she does not get along with. So its us who are her family right now.

My parents have been going in to see her every lunch time, because for some reason she refuses to eat when they are not there. So they bring her strawberry yoghurt and McDonalds cheeseburgers, because they are the only two things which seem to make her happy right now. The doctors have told my parents that she refuses to eat anything, except for when they are there. So they go, every day at 12 and spoon the food into her mouth.

My mother could not go today so I went in her place.

I remember Roma from my childhood. The Roma I remember is quickwitted and acid tongued. She could go a round of insults with my father like no-one on earth. She was active and busy. The Roma I remember loved a beer (just one) and told dirty jokes that forced my mother to cover my ears. She had died brown hair and a big cackle of a laugh.

In the bed at the hospital sat a tiny, frail, colourless imitation of a lifeform. Her hair, her skin and her eyes are all devoid of life and light. Her face is so thin and sallow that it is literally sucked under her cheek bones. Her hair is grey. Her eyes were creamy and sunken, with no sparkle. When I walked in I thought she was already dead.

When she woke up she was barely there. She didnt realise who we were at first. It probably took her 20 minutes to realise that we werent the nurses. She didnt remember that my parents had been there yesterday. She was confused.

My father held her and I fed her. Spooned strawberry yoghurt into her mouth, broke up the cheese burger into tiny pieces. Sometimes she fell asleep while we were feeding her, and would wake up and open her mouth for more. I fed her some of the puree'ed mess the hospital has given her- vegies and mince. And I held the cup of "liquid white" (dont ask but it looks revolting) that she has to drink since water is not thick enough and fills her lungs.

Roma has refused the IV that will get her better. So I guess in a way we are just feeding her so whe will die anyway. She wants to die, she told my mother, please let them make me die.

And as sad as it sounds, why shouldnt she be able to die? What has she got to live for? I know that I would not want to exist for an extra couple of years as a vegetable who is fed by nurses and cant shit for herself. I would hate to be alive for a couple more years to be put in a bed at a nursing home where I would rot til the end. She is ready to go and that is fair enough she is sick of the pain.

And the sad thing is I want her to. I wouldnt want to live the way she is living, with no dignity and no say in what happens. She has lived. She deserves to be able to let go.

Thats all.