(no subject)

Well, she's gone. Right after I sent her a card in the mail (thanks for all of the ideas). As soon as her daughter signed her up for hospice care the nurses took one look at her daughter, who has been living with her and taking care of her alone for six years now, and ordered her away for a couple of weeks... she was in total burnout and I've never known her to be so frazzled. Everyone thought that it'd be a few months, maybe even half a year. So daughter took an assignment on the West coast for three weeks and her mom began hospice - and just days later, the mother passed quietly in her sleep.

The person who was with her at the end said she'd asked to go outside - it was the bright clear night in between storm fronts and was beautiful. He carried her out to look at the stars, then tucked her back in. The nurses woke him up in the early morning to say that they thought she was passing.

And so the struggle is over. I am not saddened by her death. She was so weary of life and in so much pain that it was a blessing to be able to finally go on. And her daughter, one of the strongest women I know, will have to turn her life upside down again but this time with no more overwhelming duty and long years of struggle in front of her. I'm grateful.

I hope both of them are resting now, one in a new land and the other with a new future of life.