Dying isn't Straightforward

I think my mother might be dying, but I don't know for sure. My father is the only one who sees her, and he is an unreliable reporter, through no fault of his own optimism. My mom is refusing food, but occasionally eats a little bit. My guess is that she is eating about 100 calories a day and drinking maybe eight ounces of apple juice. Maybe. She has good days when she eats. She has bad days when she eats less or nothing.

I was late in replying to an email from my friend Eleanor. I apologized and I told her the situation with my mom.

"I was beginning to worry.  Indeed, I thought you might be in Ohio.  If she has stopped eating, and they don’t force feed her, she may not live more than two weeks, especially if they don’t intravenously hydrate her.  This is life."

Another friend Barbara had a similar thought. When I told her I would be in Ohio next week to see my mom because she wasn't eating, Barbara said, "I hope you make it in time."

I don't think these women were being callous or uncaring, just honest, honest with a sense of "It's is better to face the possible negative outcome and prepare for the worst." These are women who know where the candles and flashlights are when the electricity goes out.

And then I talk to Jack, who bizarrely predicts she will live longer than we think. "It is really hard to die," he said. "I've seen terminal cancer patients that keep hanging on. The human body can survive for several weeks on a little bit of water and a tiny bit of food. And your mother isn't built like Auntie Ange." Auntie Ange was about four feet tall and weighed about seventy pounds.

My dad is having a hard time as far as I can gather. "I am going to write her obituary," he said. He can't tell me when he thinks she'll die, and he doesn't yet know the prognosis. He is moving into acceptance, though, that it will be sooner than later.

Unlike coming into this world, dying isn't straightforward. With pregnancy, there are many things that can go wrong, as I know too well. Once those bad things are taken out of the equation, you can pretty easily predict that a baby will arrive in 40 weeks, give or take a week or two. You can plan on the place and in some cases, the date and time. With dying, there is no schedule, no plan, no map.