Dying is easy, it’s living that’s a bitch

Posted on September 5th, 2010 @ 22:25 in Uncategorized

Earlier today I was reading this AskMefi question about dying in a hospice, how long one might last without food and drink etc. It’s a sad thread. Someone in it said:

Most people tend to come into the world with lots of people around but leave it with few if anyone around so what you are doing is awesome! [link]

Truer words never spoken. I feel bad about the fact that my nan (my only remaining grandparent out of six) is lonely and stuck in a hospice. They’re dreadful places, everyone is horribly old and most people aren’t even that lucid anymore, so it’s like sitting around vegetables all day (and while my nan has certainly deteriorated, she still has fairly sharp moments for an 88-year-old). But there isn’t that much I can do, I have no idea when she is going to die, might be 10 years yet, so I can hardly go and sit at her bedside just in case.

Not that I would want to do that. I am terribly reluctant to contact her, and have been an awful granddaughter for the past few years. This has a lot to do with my father standing between us, and my nan being horrible to my mum, but it also has a lot to do with my cowardice and being unable to deal with emotional outpourings. Whenever I do speak to her or go see her, she’s mainly crying – crying because she’s so glad to see me, crying because everything’s dreadful and she wants to die, crying (now) because my father’s dead etc. And of course I have to constantly tread on eggshells because when I decided I’d try to overcome my rancour about Things, it meant not talking about Them.

Not that they don’t come up anyways. They’re different from her point of view of course. “I have to be careful, cuz last time I stuck with your father, you all stopped talking to me.” *cue more crying* Um no actually, we stopped talking to you when you stabbed my mother in the back, probably instigated by my father of course. “Oh well, that’s all in the past now.” Well that’s convenient, isn’t it. Yes, I’m still bitter, as you can tell. But no doubt I’ll be wrought with guilt once she’s dead and grief joins the party in my head.

Originally this entry wasn’t going to be all about my nan. But I guess it reflects the fact that I do think about her a lot these days. Stupid, all that wasted energy, I could spend it on actually talking to her. My thinking about her is of no use to her. Oh well. Time for bed. Time spent sleeping is never wasted. The world in my head is so much better than reality. Except when this stuff creeps in of course.

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