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{Reservations} {Tickets} {Map} {Photos} {Souvaniers} {Postcards} {Design} 2003-02-20 | 10:16 p.m. Death is a promise. Do you like promises, Diary? Sometimes I do. Certain promises hold out enjoyable outcomes, awaited pleasantness, even a certain degree of joy. Is there such a thing? Joy that is, in degrees? Shouldn't it be white hot shooting stars and prickles on your shoulder traveling thru, that hangs around all weekend, keeping you buzzed and walking on air for days? Maybe. Should and shouldn't are tuff werds. Mr. K died with his entire family around him. His wife, daughter, granddaughter and others. About a dozen all together. Some of them were former workers at my facility. He went hard. Struggeling for air right until the last 20 minutes or so. We could hear his labored breathing out in the hall, before even entering the room. Imagine trying to breath thru a face mask filled with pudding. That's pretty close to the sound. He was drenched with sweat. I asked the girls to please go in and freshen him up, which they did immediately. He was a man. Maybe he struggled with it because he didn't want his family to see him die that way, as a "patient". He might have wished to pass in a more dignified manner or perhaps alone. Maybe even in his own bed, sleeping next to his wife's familiar, warm body, his own pillow beneath his head. I cried for him. Each time I gave him the morphine, it was harder and harder for me to remain calm. The last time I just had to cry a little before getting on with my assignment. He didn't want the fulfillment of this promise, and yet he couldn't escape it. Sometimes I want to have my family around me when I die, because I helped a man and his daughter be together in his last hour, and they were both satisfied with that. Sometimes I want to be alone with my God when I die, so I can pray undistracted to Him for the last few moments I am conscious. Plus, the memory of me taking my last breath might upset my kids, and I don't want them to carry that around with them forever. Genesis 2:9 says "Thus Jehovah God made to grow out of the ground every tree desirable to one's sight and good for food and also the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and bad." Two trees. One promise. Countless endings. Tomorrow I'm going into work and help out with the deluge of admissions we're getting this week. Call in pay. I need it for 'the move' if you know what I mean. ;) night Miss These? absence of life - 2003-07-28 |
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