A Few Notes on When Someone's Dying

1. Asking "How are you feeling today?" is possibly the most obvious thing one wants to say when encountering a loved one with limited time left. It is also, I now believe, one of the most trying things that person has to hear. I now desperately try to have another benign question in my arsenal before coming for a visit. Few people like to be reminded that they feel like utter shit.
2. The tears and such come at obnoxious and relatively dicey moments. I can sit through a morphine-fueled rambling about contemplating suicide and plaster a smile; I can talk funeral plans; I can update most friends and family with a level tone. But in the middle of a meeting, when something thoroughly unrelated but semi-stressful comes up, I'm reduced to sobbing in a corner. Or when my mother, who has gone from educator to nursemaid with all the compassion in the world, says the tiniest, grinding, off-handed thing and I have to go sit in the bathroom with the door locked and shake.
   
3. You can handle a lot more than you might've thought possible. Still sucks, though!
   
4. It's okay to be completely annoyed, internally, at other people's struggles when somebody you know is struggling with end of their life. It can be socially acceptable to act on this annoyance. It is a true calling to be above those sentiments, and attempt to put love and time in every other interaction, no matter how miniscule.
   
5. It truly is up to God, or a god, or the Universe, or whatever you brand it as. People asking about timelines are facetious and pandering at best; and other times anxious and uncomfortable with sadness.