The inside has been grumpy and short-tempered, but generally well (thanks for the thoughts.) I'd rather not have to deal with any people who irritate me at this time, but you can't have everything, so I just pretend I'm squishing their heads in my mind when I'm talking to them and I get by.
It's really hard to explain, I think, how quickly one estimates the end is coming. I mean, my grandmother was in denial right up until the end there, so her doctors all said encouraging things and everyone wanted to focus on good things, but you could *hear* the fear ramping up in the phone conversations with my Mom. You could tell she was conflicted about calling in the family, but ultimately she wouldn't have done it if she didn't think it was time to say goodbye.
Easier is a difficult question, because it is still so sad. What I can say about the fade is that it felt like a natural process, and I was glad that everything that needed to be said could be said, and everything that couldn't be verbalized was still communicated, and everyone who wanted to say goodbye did so when Nana clearly recognized all of us.
I've had life-threatening, traumatic emergencies happen to my parents twice while I was overseas, and there was a distinct sense of 'wrong' and 'not enough time' about it. Everything that had to be understood had a window of a few hours in which to process it, and in that time, many of the decisions had been made and most of the consequences were in. Then again, I was so far away and it would have been so expensive to go home that if I'd needed to, I wouldn't have been able to be as present as I'd have wished, not without leaving everything I was doing abroad.
I did fly home when I was living in Denmark and Mom was diagnosed with a very fast growing cancer. The timing was all wrong, but I was there. Then I came back home a month later for summer break, and left everything in Denmark behind. When Dad had a heart attack and surgery to implant three medical stents I was in South Africa. My commitment was only for three weeks, but they went to great lengths to make sure I knew that the emergency was past and that they wanted me to stay. So I flew halfway around the world in 24 hours with no breaks to get home for my Dad's birthday at the end of the three weeks.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2008-05-19 02:11 am (UTC)It's really hard to explain, I think, how quickly one estimates the end is coming. I mean, my grandmother was in denial right up until the end there, so her doctors all said encouraging things and everyone wanted to focus on good things, but you could *hear* the fear ramping up in the phone conversations with my Mom. You could tell she was conflicted about calling in the family, but ultimately she wouldn't have done it if she didn't think it was time to say goodbye.
Easier is a difficult question, because it is still so sad. What I can say about the fade is that it felt like a natural process, and I was glad that everything that needed to be said could be said, and everything that couldn't be verbalized was still communicated, and everyone who wanted to say goodbye did so when Nana clearly recognized all of us.
I've had life-threatening, traumatic emergencies happen to my parents twice while I was overseas, and there was a distinct sense of 'wrong' and 'not enough time' about it. Everything that had to be understood had a window of a few hours in which to process it, and in that time, many of the decisions had been made and most of the consequences were in. Then again, I was so far away and it would have been so expensive to go home that if I'd needed to, I wouldn't have been able to be as present as I'd have wished, not without leaving everything I was doing abroad.
I did fly home when I was living in Denmark and Mom was diagnosed with a very fast growing cancer. The timing was all wrong, but I was there. Then I came back home a month later for summer break, and left everything in Denmark behind. When Dad had a heart attack and surgery to implant three medical stents I was in South Africa. My commitment was only for three weeks, but they went to great lengths to make sure I knew that the emergency was past and that they wanted me to stay. So I flew halfway around the world in 24 hours with no breaks to get home for my Dad's birthday at the end of the three weeks.