Photo: Sue Vincent
She never grew tired of it.
Even if fatigue had become part and parcel of her every day. Of her very breath.
It did not matter. Her fatigue didn’t, that is. At least, it did not matter as much as it would have otherwise. As much as she knew it could. As much as it had in the other place, where there was naught but white walls and white squeaky soles on squeaky clean tiles and antiseptic air and officious hands and flickering images on a screen where well-dressed persons babbled about things that did not feel relevant to her in the least.
They’d urged her not to leave.
She left.
No regrets.
Not when the trade-off was brisk air and the smell of just-trampled grass and the scent of rain and the open vistas of the world rolling down into the horizon where the sun met the mountains and the sky kissed the ground.
No regrets.
Not with the play of night and day around her, not with light that flickering on her covers and the sun licking her fingers as she lay in bed. Not with a world that breathed and changed and lived and died and reemerged. With yips of puppies racing down the lawn. The hiss of wind. The chirps of birds.
Sure, others were concerned, or so they said.
She did not share their dread.
Death did not scare her. Nor did the warnings that she’d be too far from hospital to get assistance in time if another crisis came. For a crisis was bound to come, and when it did, she knew she’d be content to face it with her face to the hills and her eyes on the valleys and the snow-capped mountains where her soul would soon roam.
For she was halfway home.
More than half, perhaps, now that most of the sand in her hourglass had been shed.
It did not matter.
She was halfway home, content with whatever lay ahead.
For Sue Vincent’s WritePhoto Challenge
Na'ama Yehuda 
This is a sad but beautiful story! I like it!
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Thank you Betul! I’m glad you liked it, and thank you for reading and for commenting!
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Very beautiful, Na’ama. I understand her choice.
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Thank you, Sue. I do, too … I think that today many do understand the choice for wanting to do hospice care (or the equivalent) at home, though not everyone has the option still do so it that way, and it is always heartbreaking to me when people wish to die at home but cannot, for all manner of reasons. Obviously, there are those who feel safer in the hospital, and that is fine – it really ought to be a person’s own choice, whenever possible. For this story, I feel her peace, and I am glad for it. Hugs, Na’ama
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I agree with you, Na’ama, and it is indeed sad when there i sno-one who can or will care for those who wish to die in their own home.
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Yes, I know. It is super sad. I know some people who’d had no one to take care of them in the way they needed to at home, and for them, hospice in hospital was the only option. It is sad, though. End of life is difficult enough without having to give up what things give one some joy.
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I used to work with a hospice charity… the care given in dedicated hospices here is as close to home as ‘the sysytem’ can get. But it will never be the same.
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Yes, the care today in many hospices can be tender and caring and warm and sensitive. I have friends who are hospice nurses and are absolute angels or earth. And yet … for those who want to die at home – as more than one of my friends wanted to, and two were fortunate enough to be able to – the opportunity means a lot. Thank you for working in the hospice … it is sacred work. N.
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I was on the fundraising side, but I agree, the nursing staf were incredible and made the place as homely as possible. It is, though, not home.
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For some, it might be home enough … and for others, it might be the only home that’ll do. And for that, it matters that it is as homey as possible and as kind and possible. Many hospice places are very kind places. It matters. Even if it is not home …
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I saw many rules broken, many alternative therapies offered, much laughter and comfort… as good as it can be under the circumstances.
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Yay to that! 🙂
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What a wonderfully soft and receptive world you paint with your words, that wrap around the wise patient who’d rather that, with it’s dirt and danger, than the sterility of a hospital ward. I’ve known several folks who, diagnosed terminal, have opted to die in their own home, with their family and all things familiar.
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Thank you Crispina.
I know some, too, some of them dear to me, who chose to die at home and were blessed to be able to pass on at home, with their friends and loved ones and home-things and pets around them.
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It seems the natural way. Heart-breaking enough when death is the result of a violence or accident
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Yes. Very much so. Death itself is just a part of the path we all walk. When it is violent – man made or otherwise – it is tragic, for the suddenness of it, for the lack of time to say goodbye that living to old age or knowing one’s time was coming can sometimes allow. Choices matter, anyhow …
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Yea 🙂
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🙂
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Thank you, Sue! This was a lovely photo prompt – it set the setting, as it were, perfectly!
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Not a good time, wherever you are, hopefully we will all find a peaceful way of coping with it…
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True …. though passing on is just part of the path we all take … so hopefully we can take it in a way that works for us …
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Reblogged this on anita dawes and jaye marie.
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