Yesterday, my mother died at the age of eighty-three.  I suppose I should have expected this.  One of my sisters asked me today why we didn’t let her die at home.  The truth is that I either didn’t realize that she was dying, or in denial about it.  She took a shower alone the day before, had been bathing and cooking for my mentally retarded sister in the prior weeks. There was no change in her routine except for the tendency to fall asleep in the middle of a conversation (I attributed that to us boring her).

Last weekend the struggle to eat and drink seemed to have escalated.  My sister became a short-order cook.  I tried shoveling food into my mother’s mouth, but she wouldn’t allow it. We hounded her all weekend about eating and drinking.  By Sunday night, I was starting to worry.  She was sleeping a lot…