Chapter 12 – Involved Dreaming and the Approach of Death
There was something different about the days and weeks before she died. It was mostly in the sleeping and in how she expressed about her sleep. To me she was sleeping a lot, almost all the time, at least in the last week or two before the hospital. And really, for some time, maybe three months, I felt there was a disconnect between the amount of sleep she was getting and the amount of sleep she felt she needed. In the back of my mind, I was scared about this because it seemed like the natural progression towards death, but Sally never wanted to see it that way, even though I think she did.
This was an example of the confusion, for me, that persists. There were quiet times over the last three or four months when Sally would express to me her fear of death. I knew she understood what her body was going through with the need to sleep. She understood it but she refused it. It was like the only way she could keep the messages from her body away was to refuse them. But she knew. But she refused. The question in my mind became, what if you didn’t refuse? Would you die? Would you die sooner? Would you live? Would you live longer?
I don’t know.
But Sally was sleeping a lot and feeling like she couldn’t get enough sleep.
“I’m so tired. I just need to rest.” She would say, after sleeping for most of the day.
And so she would rest, she would sleep, I would tuck her in or adjust her on the couch – which had become her home and she would sigh, gratefully at the comfort of the electric blanket and how it made her feel warm. Through all of this, through every degradation of her body, through every loss of function that came, steadily one after the other, she would always be grateful for the electric blanket, she would give a smile, true and content and I knew there was a place inside her that was untouched by all this and really, that knowledge, it wrecked me inside. I don’t know why…but it did.
A few days before we went to the hospital for the final time, it became apparent that she was having involved dreams. I would wake up to her talking, mostly mumbling – I never actually heard words – and I would look out at her, and she would have a hand or two up, like she was touching someone or something. When I first saw this, I was scared but it didn’t last long as I looked on her and saw her face, peaceful, no stress; she was simply in a different place.
This involved dreaming was a hard marker, just like the catheter, the commode, the wheelchair, and the walker. I can look back now and see the stages of approaching death. She dreamed like this a lot in the last week or two, including times in the hospital when we would see her reaching out and talking. I am convinced this was a beautiful experience for Sally. I don’t know what was going on inside but from the outside she appeared curious, unafraid, and engaged. Sally believed deeply in some kind of afterlife, she believed her parents and others were spirits, she believed there was an existence after this life and I was particularly comforted by seeing her do this, as much as I was saddened by what I thought it meant.
Edited 3/23/24
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