The First Thursday in March
A year ago, on the first Thursday of March, Leiney, my sister Jane and I were lying in the bed that abutted Jenny's hospital bed set up in the master bedroom. Jenny hadn't been conscious in days. In fact, she had very much been in the active stages of dying. We were facing her and chit chatting. As you sit next someone in the throes of death, someone taking days to die and who is unconscious, and suffering, fear dissipates. Compassion and love fill your heart. I remember the day before, I sat alone with her and sang every song I could remember that meant so much to the two of us, that she loved so much, that we loved so much. On that Thursday, none of the three of us could leave Jenny's side. Some days ago, before she lost her faculties, she had seen her dead mother and father standing in the room, a common happening as you near death. Fish breathing, which had been going on a few days before and is another feature of impending death, had passed, and now, she was taking a ...
