Death is definite, there are no "sort of's" or "maybe's", it either is or it isn't the reality. And if death is the reality then it also means you'll be faced with an indefinite number of goodbyes void of a hello.
As a kid I never thought about my grandmother dying and not that I was unaware of death, my first funeral was at age five, but when someone has always been there you don't imagine them gone. But here I am, pushing twenty-three years old and looking after my dying grandmother. Now don't get me wrong, I'm doing it willingly and I love it, but it's hard sometimes. Currently she has a doctors appointment every tuesday, after which I make my round of phone calls: one cousin, four aunts, and my parents. It's during those calls that I wonder how much longer until I make the call that no one wants to get? When she naps during the day I'll go check on her and sometimes I can't tell if she's breathing and I don't want to wake her so I'll stand and watch until I know it's okay to leave. I wonder if she'll die at home or in the hospital, if it will be painful or if she'll pass in her sleep, peacefully. I wonder if I'm the one that will find her. I try not to think about this at all, for one she wouldn't want me to, and two, I would go crazy with worry. But sometimes I can't help it.
No matter your age (or theirs) death is never easy to deal with and at age five I never dreamed that eighteen years would pass and I would find myself here. I will never be sorry for the decision that I made, but that doesn't make it easier.
Heaven and hell aside, life on this earth end wih death and that is forever...
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