On Balance: Fine Threads

When the room is dark, dark enough, and cool, cool enough, and nobody is on the balcony overlooking the square, and the music that has been played was the songs of long ago, and ice chips rubbed on the lips take the place of champagne, and rose balm on the lips takes the place of food, and oud oil on the bedsheet takes away the scent of hospital, and enough saline and glucose to satisfy, not to starve, and enough painkiller to comfort, not to kill, are running through the transparent tubing of the drips, though these measures must be checked as there always might be those who would alter them, but the compression of the oximeter on the finger has been removed, and the blood pressure cuff with its tightening has been removed, and no screen is allowed to light up and no machine to bleep, and the whispers in the ear, voice after known and trusted voice, have been about letting go, it is safe to let go, the breathing may lighten, and while the people in the room murmur to each other, gradually, with no agitation, the oxygen bag on the chest stops moving, and, measured for the last time, the blood pressure is zero, and that was death, flight of angels, family occasion, indeed a going to rest.

Until my mother Leila began her last twenty or so years of dying, I had thought of life as linear. With good habits you could push death back. With recklessness, you could accelerate towards death. ...