After a long and protracted illness, my mother-in-law succumbed and was laid to rest yesterday. She had been almost comatose for the past six months, not recognizing anyone nor talking, not aware of what was happening around her. She was being fed intravenously, in her own house, as doctors had said she didn't have long to live and it was better to keep her at home.
She was born when most women died in childbirth. I don't know how many of her children died in infancy. I know of at least two. Of the five children who survived, one (her son aged 68) died nine years ago. He had survived a terrible accident in his teens, and it was a miracle that he didn't die. Unfortunately, he always suffered from blinding headaches due to the accident, but somehow managed to live, getting married and fathering two children.
My mother-in-law lived a tortuous life after being married at the age of 11 or 12. When she died, she was around 92, but suffering from severe dementia for the past five or six years. Doctors said it was due to the blood supply to her brain being low (probably as a result of all the medicines she had to take).
Every time I attend a funeral, I wonder how long it'll be before I too am consigned to the dust. Yesterday I saw many men who looked like walking corpses, some of them younger than I am. I suppose I should be grateful that I'm not as sick as some of them, but at times it seems that I have done nothing for which I'll be remembered. My relatives will remember me for a few days, then forget that I ever lived. But that is what happens with everyone. Oh well, having lived this long, I should be happy that I'm still able to walk without a walking stick.
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