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Death Watch
This dispatch comes from my mother’s hospice room.
Earlier today, she told my wife that she expects to walk on in the next 24 hours and she would like somebody to sit with her. So my wife took the first shift and I’m here for the second.
This little death watch diary will have to be today’s contribution to Medium. No dog story; no Trump story…but I repeat myself.
It’s a small room. I am sitting in her wheelchair and my laptop is resting on my walker. I plugged it in over next to the oxygen port, where the red plug is not in use. My battery is charged up but I’m one of those paranoid souls who always plugs in when possible.
I woke her when I came in — not on purpose — and she’s resting with her eyes closed now, either back asleep or about to be. She does not appear to be having any pain.
Last time we talked about pain, she said she only gets it when she eats certain kinds of foods — those being pretty much everything she likes.
Her mother raised me, and grandma always had a big coffee tin on the stove to catch bacon grease and lard. She never changed the grease can, although she would seine it with a tea strainer now and then to remove pieces of food poured in by accident.