2007 - Death rituals, part 2

Since Robin died I've heard various descriptions of the death process experienced by other folks.

None was as comparatively peaceful as Robin's. For three days she lay very still in bed with her eyes closed. Then the evening of the last day she began to breathe more heavily. For someone with such a low energy state her breathing began to take on a rapid pace. This lasted for about forty-five minutes. Four of us sat there. We held her hands, we talked to her.

In the end she unexpectedly leaned up on her elbows, looked around at each of us, then gently put her head back on the pillow and the life left her body.

I'm not really sure about everything that happened after that. I know I checked her pulse a half dozen times. Then it seems like we all milled around the rooms for a while. I guess we were crying then. I had called hospice when the heavy breathing was happening, so eventually we called them back to let them know what had transpired.

We took some time to rub massage oil into her arms and legs.

We gathered together her favorite clothes. Her favorite sweats, a hello kitty t-shirt, a knit cap that she'd been wearing for so long. We dressed her up nicely.

There was a vase of roses. We folded her hands across her body and gave her one.

When the funeral folks came a couple hours later I didn't want to watch them pick her up so I looked the other way and talked to Kim. We'd used humor as a defense for so long now I only felt slightly self-conscious saying "gee, with all that oil we used on Robin, I hope she doesn’t slip out of their hands."

They wrapped her in a blanket as if she were on the way to the hospital. We'll that's what I'm picturing - I didn't look but asked Kim to tell me what was happening. I didn’t want to see because I didn't want to remember her that way.