![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/041223-LIT-e1682194054667.jpg\")
<\/p>\nEditor\u2019s Note: Marlow chimes in this morning with some thoughts about the road ahead we all share. We held off on running this piece during Holy Week to stay in tune with the turning of our world from winter gray to the promise of bright blossoms amid fresh new green. Our contribution? Stay alert. And love the life we live!<\/p>\n
– Vic<\/p>\n
My Turn Now<\/p>\n
What\u2019s it all about to be at death\u2019s door and ready to walk through it?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a bit thinner now than I was back during the Christmas holidays but not much so given the bountiful, tasty treats W tempts me daily with. I\u2019ve lost muscle tone and the curve slope of my function loss has increased but not scarily so. Yet. But it\u2019s coming. Our in-house living arrangements have evolved a bit with me living exclusively on the first floor, acquiring assistive accoutrements of chairs, bathing helpers and such for the activities of daily living.<\/p>\n
I no longer want or need to tell folks that I am dying, I just wait for signs of their inner stillness to gently tell than what\u2019s happening and that I\u2019m OK with it — sorta like Butch Cassidy and Sundance jumping off the cliff into the river canyon\u2019s raging torrents. Someone\u2019s gotta push off first, no? It\u2019s just my turn.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
With the doctors this talk\u2019s been tough, since their primary task is managing the hope file cabinet of Hail Mary pass play diagrams, we might choose to call and run on the patient\u2019s behalf. It\u2019s a strange sensation to sense the arbitrary switching of roles between the sick and provider.<\/p>\n
There are no accepted signals that it\u2019s safe to talk about dying, so I as the patient surfaces it using the D word. Maybe we say to our providers we don\u2019t want any more of these off-label use of drug ZSWira or that our affairs are in order or that we\u2019ll go out to dinner with them next week. I have started this death talk or its prelims long before some of them appeared ready.<\/p>\n
Deathbed miracles strictly forbidden: a good death, newfound wisdom, last minute reconciliations, regrets dealt with, our lives\u2019 tasty spiciness simmered into a bland tomato sauce, and neatness of the death process – it ain\u2019t. It\u2019s also NOT the dying\u2019s showtime for the living.<\/p>\n
Even if I tell them I\u2019m ready, nothing can lessen the blunt force of their grief of loss \u2013 the hard reboot control-alt-del of the human condition.<\/p>\n
Just put this into your backpack — I\u2019m still okay now, since I look down at the dirt and not up. It\u2019s just my turn now.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2023 My Aisle Seat
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Editor\u2019s Note: Marlow chimes in this morning with some thoughts about the road ahead we all share. We held off on running this piece during Holy Week to stay in tune with the turning of our world from winter gray to the promise of bright blossoms amid fresh new green. Our contribution? Stay alert. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-island-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25958"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25961,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25958\/revisions\/25961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}