It Depends on How You Look at It

Fear of Death...Fear of Life

FEAR OF DEATH; FEAR OF LIFE

As she grew older, we feared the moment when we would lose her. 

Leaving was always difficult, fraught with thoughts of finality and death, how this might be the last time. 

Misty eyed we would keep looking back over our shoulders, watching as she stood at the balcony railing, waving until we rounded the corner and lost sight of her.  

Then, a cloud of gloom settling over us and sadness filling up our senses, we would walk on in silence.

As she grew still older, death seemed imminent and we grew to expect that it could come at any moment. 

Life was becoming a burden. She struggled to get from the living room to the kitchen. 

She puffed and sighed and the slightest exertion exhausted her. 

The endless card games became a trial, first searching for the right pair of glasses and then Wolfgang always having to lean over and tell her which cards she had, and then picking out the appropriate one and playing it. 

We wished she would sit down and take it easier. But that only made her push herself even harder. 

When we left she gave us big hugs at the door and leaning on her cane against the door frame, watched and waved as we went down the stairs.

Now she is old beyond old. We look on with fear and dread as life goes on and on. 

The skin on her face just barely hides the sharply protruding bones beneath, as she looks up with eyes that barely see. 

She doesn't get up to greet us. Nothing works like it used to. We lose patience with repeating everything several times loudly and she is hurt when we sink into silence. We are annoyed with cutting everything small and then picking it up off the floor when it falls off the fork she insists on holding herself; we are disgusted with the pungent odor of urine that fills her presence and feel ill-used when we have to change her diapers because she refuses the help of a caregiver. 

She can't help it, and neither can we. When we leave, we're relieved. Almost immediately we are overcome with a guilt and remorse - that never goes away.