She held her in her arms, not ready to give her up just yet. She cooed soft words into her ear trying to ease her mind. It was amazing how slow time could go, and then nearing the end of a process suddenly speeds up. The women started crying, so her granddaughter held her even more tightly. She wasn’t ready for her to leave her, but she knew that that was selfish of her. Her grandmother didn’t want to suffer anymore and she had to respect that. Deep inside she did but she just wasn’t ready.

“Don’t worry I’ll take good care of you, you wont feel anymore pain” the granddaughter said. The old woman was too frail to nod her head; she was all skin and bones. She hadn’t eaten in a week, so it was only a matter of time. She reached over to the tiny black night table, and retrieved the morphine, she shot it in the woman’s mouth (it was a liquid) “there no more pain, like I promised” she then got the ad Evan patch, and put it on her grandmothers arm; it was to help with the aches and pains. She never wanted to see her in pain, so she made sure that hospice brought extra bags of drugs. In an hour the woman’s breath was slurred and sounded like there was a lot of water in her. She had kidney failure which meant that she was on dialysis. But this past week, they were unable to do it due to her low blood pressure. Now, without being drained out from dialysis, she would retain water and eventually “drown”.

The granddaughter closed her eyes for five minutes. “I’ll be right here if you need me Nana.” She said. A little while later he awoke to a nonmoving grandmother. It didn’t seem real, it all seemed like a dream. But no matter how many times she pinched herself she wouldn’t wake up from this nightmare. Hospice came in and called time of death. She just sat with her grandmother and smoothed her hair. Part of her was happy that she was not suffering, but, the other half of her wanted to curl up and die. She let them take the body out of the room and to the morgue. She had to pull herself together. Tomorrow was the funeral, and she would always be with her.