how we die.

It's a new year, with new beginnings. With beginnings come endings, though. My aunt passed away in the early morning hours of New Years Day. We had gotten a phone call around 8am on December 31, saying that her breathing was very slow and erratic. We all drove to her house, and she had a glassy stare and kept reaching up to the ceiling and shading her eyes. All the physical signs were there of impending death: glassy stare that looks "past" you; jerky muscle spasms due to loss of muscle control; mouth hanging open and eyes half-open. She was given medication to subdue the bodily twitching. It was something, though, to watch her reach toward something we could not see. I'd like to think that she was reaching toward Heaven and shading her eyes against the light. It's hard to fully believe, though. Faith and science are hard to reconcile.

As the hours went on, she became comatose, not responding to touch or sound, although they say hearing is the last thing to go. Her breathing was fast, then slow, then fast. She'd gotten so thin you could see her heart leaping with all its effort under her pajama top.

I know this death, by all accounts, was a "good" death. She was on hospice, pain-free and was in her own house, in her own bed. But honestly, it made me think, seeing her day after day, slowly ebbing away. We talk about "good" deaths, we want to die with "dignity." But I'm not sure if it's bullshit. The cancer grew unchecked and the bowel obstruction became complete. When she sat up, she vomited because of the pressure on her esophagus and when she lay down she couldn't breathe because of the tumors pressing on her lungs. She'd lost so much weight that she could see and feel the tumors poking against the skin of her abdomen. Her bodily fluids were coming out in bags and tubes and she barely had energy to talk. And this is a good death.

I don't know what a "good" death would look like, and I know that many diseases destroy any hope of a "good" dying process. I believe in G-d, and I consider my faith to be fairly strong. But this whole process has made me think and question. There are so many things I don't understand and probably never will.

My aunt's mother, my grandmother, has Alzheimer's that has rapidly progressed. I mean to the point where today at the memorial, she asked where Edie (my aunt) was. She has to be retold that her daughter died, and it's like the first time, every time. She doesn't remember basic things and perseverates on everything. She is not even herself any more. It must be scary, not knowing your own life after a while. This is its own kind of death, I think. A living death, almost. Where you can die and yet remain very much physically alive. I'm not sure which is worse sometimes; watching someone die of cancer or watching someone die from Alzheimer's.