Hospice

You sit there and wait to die. There's a tube going in and a tube going out. You can't get conformable in the hospital bed because as soon as you lull yourself into comfort, you realize your dying again and there's nothing you can do but wait. A long line of family come in and out of the room all day if you're lucky. Some folks don't have that and they wait alone. Soon, it won't matter and it will all be over. Before that, the morphine drip will take over and the labored breathing will get easier. Dying sounds like struggling for breathe while your loved ones wait for the pain to be over.

Every poor decision is accounted for, like a cosmic scale. Whoever said "peacefully in their sleep" was never there and is likely trying to sell sweet lies that are of little comfort when you're in the room. Your whole life is sowing only for the Reaper to collect in the end. The yield of your life is not measured in hectares. I don't know what it's measured in. Maybe love. But that's the kind of thing they put on sympathy cards and made for tv movies. You'll babble nonsense without knowing and when questioned about it, you'll act as if it was they who broke the silence. Small moans come too and this too is the sound of dying.

Remember as much as you can. Every memory is an anchor to life. This is a fight, your last fight and you'll be damned if you don't at least try to keep going. Captains go down with the ship. The hull will breach, the engines stall. The crew drowns together and you stay at the helm, steering a ruddlerless ship.

You're in a lot of pain, but you can't express it. You're basically an infant. You can't sleep at night and the breathing gets slower. Harder. Your wife is in the room and your children and they're trying to laugh with you like this were another normal day. Your daughter is crying and you want to comfort her, but you can't get your arms up. You used to be strong. You could carry her for hours and hours and it was never long enough. You told her you'd take care of everything. Now you piss in a bag. It's hard to open your eyes. They're in folding chairs, surrounding you. They got pizza, but won't leave your side, so they eat in the room and watch you like some macabre theatre performance. You're a punch drunk champion in his last bout, except there's no purse and the fix is in. Go down in the fourth. You're very tired now. Your eyes won't open, unless you have to. The I love yous are pouring in now. Hang on. Hang on. Maybe you'll make it out after-