 |
| Still 20 years to go. |
Death is in the air. My co-worker's mom died at age 90 after a brief illness. Scott Adams's father died shortly after he ranted in this blogpost. His father's illness was not so brief.
I watched my mother spiral out of control in a year before her death. Fortunately, I did not take the doctor's advice and have a pacemaker put in her. My mother no longer knew who the people were around her, she did not recognize her home, she wanted to go back to her daddy, and thought her husband of 60 years was her kidnapper. She lived in perpetual sadness with occasional flares of terror.
I was lucky that her extreme dementia only lasted a year, but even that short a time took a heavy toll on me. I am certain that it brought on my first grey hair at least.
As for my dad, his downward spiral was much slower and longer. He lived to be 101, and each year he said it was "old enough." He missed his wife, he'd outlived all his golf partners (although they had all been younger), and occasionally he would forget who I was. I was lucky again in that 99.6% of the time he was a sweet, tractable man. But perhaps our (because I could not have handled this without the support of my husband who did so much) constant attention forced my dad to hang on too long. In the end, we had to be out of the country for him to die. I really think his mind and body decided that would be the safest time to give in because we wouldn't be there to call him back or insist that the doctors keep him going.
I believe in death with dignity. I do not want to linger, sad and afraid. I don't want to be a prisoner in my own mind. I don't want to be a drain on the system or my family (all of them distant).
