Final Wishes

Every day this week I waited for someone to die, and hoped it would be quick. I was called in to help figure out what to do, after she'd had a stroke, couldn't speak for herself, and had no Representation Agreement ( British Columbia's form of Living Will.). I dug through the information I was provided with, talked to her friends, and her lawyer and accountant, and Trust Official. I emerged with a picture of a 90 year old woman who would not have wanted to be kept alive in the condition she was in; would not have wanted anything more than to go gracefully and with love. I looked into her clear blue eyes--they must have held a sparkle once--and talked to her, but she couldn't focus or answer enough to guide me. Nor her friends. So it was decided to let her go the way everyone hoped she would have wanted. In a couple of days she declined rapidly, then was unconscious, and then a day more, and she was gone.

I wsa only a health care worker who was called in to consult. But I think of her, of the picture I saw of a grandmotherly lady in a garden of roses, with a hat blown in the wind and a shy impish smile, and think, "if only you had told someone what you would have wanted."