gloaming

I spoke with Aunt Grace yesterday. She had been home for a few days, with 24-hour care. Three shifts, because she couldn't deal with the idea of someone living with her. I guess I can understand that. Uncle Johnny died in 1946, and she's been alone ever since.

She sounded pretty puny. And evidently she's got another case of the Rudy Kazoots (old family term for diarrhea), and became dangerously dehydrated, so she's in the hospital again.

Jeanne tells me that earlier today Grace said, "I've lived a pretty good life for 92 years. What did I ever do to deserve this?"

Life isn't fair, is it. But then fairness isn't a concept that's found in nature, I suppose. More and more I'm understanding why we say "Lucky bastard!" when we hear about someone who simply dropped dead in mid-sentence from a brain aneurysm, or who just failed to wake up one morning, or who died peacefully behind the wheel of his car rather than screaming in terror like his passengers. Okay, maybe not that last one. But you get my drift.

My physician and I have begun a conversation that likely will go on over the course of our affiliation. The topic of that conversation is something like "exit strategies and the means to accomplish same. " This is just another way of considering and planning for the future, not all that different from carefully choosing 401(k) investment options. I'm not planning any such trips in the near future, of course, but I always like to have a plan. Plans are good, even when they aren't used. Aunt Grace is a pretty devout Catholic, so such a strategy isn't available to her.

There is a point where living stops and dying begins. Aunt Grace has been in the space between for a few years now. But I don't think she's in the betwixt any longer. Funny how some of us wouldn't let something like this happen to our pets, yet we collectively believe there's some higher purpose to this kind of human suffering.

Did that sound like crap to you? It sure did to me.