Can you give me a moment? She just died.

Death is a subject many steer clear of at all cost for the majority of life until it actually is on your doorstep.  Yet many say it is this fear of death that makes us fearful.  Death is so far away when you are young and you really have no conception of it unless you suffer a serious childhood disease that makes you aware of it.

I spoke with an old friend today who woke up three days ago and called the doctor and said, "I think I'm dying and I don't care but my kids want me to see a doctor."

She said, "You never heard a receptionist move so fast to get me in the next day."  Maybe the fact she is 95 y o has something to do with it.  She called me and told me she had an appointment tomorrow but she felt like having a fish sandwich from McDonald's so she was going to ride up and get one.  I said, "If it is not intruding, please call me after your appointment tomorrow and let me know how you are doing."

Next day she doesn't call.  Next day I call her.  Now this day I am also waiting to hear about another 95 y o lady, a closer family member, who is actually in the hospital with her family on a death watch.
I call my friend and she tells me they did three tests and the doctor could not find anything.  I asked her how her fish sandwich was and she tells me she bought two and brought them home and ate them both.  This is good, I knew from speaking with her last week she had not been eating lately.  She does not like to cook and never learned even though she had 6 children.  How she managed that I don't know.

She eats at Mickey D's a lot, she likes the food.  I do not like fast food and you can count on two hands how many times I have eaten there in my life, but I never imagined how many retired widows and widowers must eat there regularly until her conversation.

My friend tells me she went to Columbia County to her doctor and stopped by the cemetery to visit her 16 y o grandson grave.  I asked how he died and she said bone cancer and that he suffered for years and when he died she was glad he was not in pain anymore.  She recalls burying his kitten that died prematurely when he was a little guy.  She was at his bedside when he died and his last words were, "I love you Grandma."  She said he died long, long, ago but she visits his grave every year to follow him as far as she can.  She knows he is not there but she talks to his grave anyway, it makes her feel better.

Later a text reveals the family member, a Grandmother died this morning.  People are saying, "She lived a long life, she was 95 y o." as if that makes it ok for us and I suppose it is ok, but can we just for a few days, say nothing as we grieve and make peace with the death?  Can you give me some space, a little time, some silence, just be present while the healing begins?  Maybe we will visit the grave to follow her as far as we can and talk to her even though we know she is not there. Maybe it will make us feel better.