The death rattle.
It's so hard listening to my Mom cough, knowing that that's how she's going to die. Coughing. She'll cough and cough, chipping away at her bright vitality little pieces at a time, until her small, wasted body doesn't have the strength to draw in her next breath. The tired muscles surrounding her lungs--filled with abscesses and mucus she couldn't force up no matter how hard her body shook--will tighten no more.
Have you ever actually heard someone die? The last, drawn-out exhalation? ...The last action of a body that doesn't know it's dead yet. It's an awful sound. Hers will be pocked with the roughness of years of struggling to catch her breath. She doesn't deserve this...this painful wasting. She is the purest, most giving soul I have ever met. She is nothing but light.
I can't take it. I can't bear to lose another family member.
Have you ever actually heard someone die? The last, drawn-out exhalation? ...The last action of a body that doesn't know it's dead yet. It's an awful sound. Hers will be pocked with the roughness of years of struggling to catch her breath. She doesn't deserve this...this painful wasting. She is the purest, most giving soul I have ever met. She is nothing but light.
I can't take it. I can't bear to lose another family member.