The Expected Unexpected....

She had started on a new medication and things were just out of balance.

When she fell, for the first time in her life, she did not argue about going to the Hospice center to get her medications tweaked.

She checked in around 11pm.

She was thrilled to have a nurse that spoke Portuguese.

She was restless so they gave her a bit of morphine so she could sleep.

They said their good byes and assured her they would be back in the morning.

They left, she fell asleep.

A half hour later the nurse came to check on her and she was gone.


The thing about death is that even when it's expected, it's not.  So while no one expected it at that moment, it could not be argued.  His brother will never have to worry that he slept through her last moments.  His brother's girlfriend will not have to wonder if she had missed something, as she had been doing the bulk of her home health care.  There was no commotion or craziness at the house to wake up her 10 year old grandson at 2:20 am.  She felt no pain. No struggle. No sense of panic as her lungs filled and her heart gave out. She just fell asleep.

I think she was ready.  I keep telling Tony that if she wasn't she'd be hanging out in the basement as all spirits tend to do here.  He just rolls his eyes and thinks I'm crazier than usual.  But she's not here, I can't sense her at all, even in her own home, which to me, means that she was happy with her life lived, and that she knew her boys would be okay.

And while her sons may have been prepared, her estate was definitely not ready.  While there is a will, there are lots of loose ends to tie up.  Things she could never have known are happening, complicating the process, slowing it all to a dead stop if it were not for my husband who must keep it moving forward.  He has paid the mortgage faithfully for five years and now the house needs to go, not just for us financially, but for everyone's sanity.  In uncovering financial details we have learned far more than we ever should have, details that can taint is relationship with the only family he has left, which would be the worst tragedy of all.

In the end it will happen the way it should.

Death magnifies everything.  Good.  Bad.  Greed. Generosity.  Control.  Love.  Family.

It's up to them which ones they will chose to look past, and which ones they will embrace. I just hope we can keep the process moving forward fast enough that they can't move past the ones they get stuck on.