Richard Feinman reportedly commented that the trouble with dying was that it is too d. boring.  It is also miserably uncomfortable.  At least modern medicine and - for now - the law allows it to be relatively painless. 

My Dad was ready to die a couple of months ago.  Now the time really has come, but after a week of waiting, he is skin and bones in his bed.  Yesterday he could speak single words.  Today none.  We pose questions and look for a nod or shake of the head in response.  "Juice?  Shake?  Ice?  Shake.  Water?  Nod.

The Autumn House nurses and the hospice staff are helpful and supportive, but institutional silliness persists.  His three meals are brought into the room, but he has eaten nothing more solid than apple sauce for a week.  

We try to have someone sitting near him most of the time during the day.  Thankfully he sleeps at night.  The sitter provides a strawful of water or helps him urinate as needed.  We greet him when we come and say good by when we go.  I speak of the weather and of nonsense.  He does not want me to read aloud. 

My sister is back.  She had to report to work last Tuesday.  My brother stayed five days and said his final good by.  I drove him to the airport and, after dropping him off, parked along the Susquehanna River for a few minutes admiring its spring flow and seeing goldeneye and widgeon ducks beginning their northward migration.  Then I returned to relieve the hospice volunteer who provided the reprieve.

My mother knows he is leaving but is surprised each time there is a significant decline.  Real dying is more unpleasant than the words used to describe it.  We do hope that he passes during one of his rests, but the border between wakefullness and sleep blurs with weakness and with the medically induced narcosis.  None of us know exactly how we will feel when the end finally comes.  Is it wrong to hope for some joy when the struggle is finally over? 

I am here for the duration, missing my Anne and my routine, but very glad to be able to stay. 

I thank everyone who has wished us the best in this difficult time.  The moral support of family and friends provides important comfort even if actual help is unnecessary. 

It has been said that love and decency make this world work.  I believe that.  During this trial I have been reading "Middlemarch."  This difficult and dated work probes closely the workings and flaws of community and shows how wonderful good people can be and how their efforts make a better community despite the greed and unkindness of fools.  I urge all to take the challange to read this book closely.  I warn that to do so requires casting asise the distractions of our modern world.  You must read each word to bring out the wonder of the tale.

(Sorry about the spelling.  I didn't have time to create this report, check spelling, and transfer to this page.)