Many people have a vision that they’re going to die a good death because they’ve seen it on telly. A patient lies in bed, with their nearest and dearest. Holding hands. Mozart playing, before they drift into a deep sleep.
Death, for most, is not like that at all. My first husband had a horrible death. He didn’t want to die because he thought he should live for my sake and the children. But he had emphysema. Sometimes he would not be able to breathe and doctors would have to get him on a trolley to get to the right equipment. It was incredibly upsetting. We’d run down the corridor and he’d try to grab my hand. Once he put my thumb in his mouth and sucked it like a child with a dummy. Doctors shoved me out of the way and took him to a defibrillator. The next day I went back to the hospital and he was fine. I thought, how many times will we have to go through this?
