Watching someone die

Watching someone die. A participial phrase hanging in the balance.

One evening this summer I watched someone I love die. It has to be one of the most heart-wrenching and beautiful events I’ve witnessed in my third-of-a-century life. It’s beautiful in the objective sense of the word… unique and relatable and human and precious. All at once.

Time passed but at the same time it stood still. I felt like I was witnessing her walk into the afterlife. And watching her die, there was no wondering if there was an afterlife. It exists and she was headed there.

All my memories of her came flooding back to me all at once, and at the same time there was only that moment. Breathing, waiting. She was hugging me for the last time, though she was supine on the bed. I could feel her soul hugging mine as she slipped away. I would say “literally” but you wouldn’t believe me. But it was a literal embrace.

When I first saw her on the bed, I knew that she was dying. There had been other times where family members had thought she was dying, or that my great-grandma was dying, that this was it. But as soon as I saw her, I knew. And it felt like it was time, and it felt like it wasn’t.

Since then, I thought that maybe I should have stayed until the end. But I’m human, or maybe just more selfish than most, and I wanted to go home to get some sleep and see her in the morning. I knew in my heart that she would die in the night, but in my head I’d see her in the morning.

Her dementia daily robbed her blind, and it robbed the whole family too. I hated the feeling after I got off the phone with her on my more infrequent calls. They were different than the phone calls in the past. She’d call me on her way home from work across the river, telling me that I just have to go outside and see the sunset because it’s a pretty one. But then the calls were five minutes long, if that. Full of questions or sighs or little laughs because she couldn’t remember things anymore. But she remembered me.

And I thought about this on a cold windy walk with my dog. A singular phrase entered my mind: watching someone die. And my heart took it from there and remembered. I experienced a squeezing feeling in my chest that was her saying, Don’t forget me. Remember what we had. I love you. You’re okay. You make me proud.