by James Glaser
May 8, 2004

It is 2am Saturday morning, my birthday, and Charmeine Leecy just died. She didn't gasp, she didn't cry out, she just didn't take that next breath.

Charmaine hadn't been responsive to my voice for most of the day and I had to keep closing her eyes as she was too tired to close them herself. With her eyes open and not blinking they would get dried out and my hand closing them let her tears moisten them. I had been massaging her feet and hands most of the evening and they were getting cold. I would move each finger and softly rub up her arm, not wanting the blood to pool at any one spot as she was too tired to even move her arms any more.

At about midnight, I know that she looked right at me and smiled as there was a big raccoon not three feet from her eye, looking in the window as it got ready to clean out the bird feeder I had set up there. She didn't try to say anything at all, she just made eye contact with me and the smile was in her eyes.

About 1am she stopped breathing through her mouth, which she had been doing for days, and I was wiping it out with Glycerin Swabsticks so she wouldn't get all dried out. She didn't even want water any more. Now she was breathing normal, breathing shallow, with her mouth closed, but she was making little sing song sounds, almost like a chant.

At 2 o'clock, I closed her eyes again and they stayed closed. Charmaine wasn't breathing anymore. I didn't feel upset, in fact I felt relief for her. These last few weeks were so hard and the last couple of days I didn't know if she was in pain or not.

I had tried over the years to teach Charmaine how to meditate without success and then one day in the hospital she told me about this quiet little place she would go to when the pain got too bad. Out of necessity she had taught herself how to be in a sort of trance where nothing could hurt her. I think that was where she was much of the time this last week and tonight she came out, looked at me with an eye smile and then faded away.

I should call the hospice nurse, but I am going to wait a while and sit here and think.

I will be taking a few days off from writing.