#19 “I want to die. I want to go see Leonard. I am ready”
Not a hospital worker, but I watched my maternal grandmother d** in the hospital.
In her last hours, she was in and out of consciousness. My parents, myself, and my father’s mother were scattered around the spacious hospital room listening to the deafening heart rate machine and thinking of a funny story about her to tell. She woke up; her eyes did not open, but her hands started waving. She muttered out my father’s name in a voice that was drier than a mummy’s. She managed to wave her hand, beckoning him to come to her. He leaned in.
She thought she was whispering. “I want to d**,” she said. “I want to go see Leonard,” referring to her husband, who d**d 20 years ago. “I am ready.”
My mother heard her mother’s wishes and began to cry quietly. She did not want her mother to hear her pain–just as my grandmother did not want my mother to be the one to hear her request. My father held my grandmother’s hand, said “We love you,” then looked at me. I left to get the doctor to fulfill her request.
