Josephine Bruce (USA): Brazilian Portuguese

Описание: Dedicated to My Mother
Josephine Bruce, my mother, died at 7:40 p.m. Saturday, 14 June 2003 at Hickory Creek Nursing Center in The Plains.
She could have died a few weeks earlier at Doctors Hospital in Nelsonville, but I made the decision to have her connected to a machine that would breathe for her. In doing this, I went against her wishes that she had very clearly expressed to me previously.
She was connected to the breathing machine for less than 12 hours and was then able to breathe on her own until she died Saturday. It was possible that she would have had to stay connected to the breathing machine for the rest of her life.
She forgave me for my decision.
In the additional weeks that remained to her, the most important thing we did together was to write letters to all her children. The basic message of each letter was the same: I love you and I know that you love me.
When she died, all her children were with her.
She knew she was dying. When I saw her that morning, I knew that she was very ill, and I told her that this might be the day she died. When her doctor arrived, he let her know that she would most likely not survive.
This is exactly the way it should be. If I were dying, I would want to know.
She was not afraid of death. She knew that it was time, and I think that she welcomed it. Like the old song says, as a Christian, she was wearing her traveling shoes. However, like most of us, she was probably afraid that dying might be painful.
Her dying was not painful. Doctors are humane, and pain management is now an advanced art. Morphine took away the pain.
Her dying was quick. Her doctor told me that she would probably die within 12 to 24 hours. From the time he told me that to the time she died took seven and a half hours.
The seven and a half hours were a misery, but to wait 12 to 24 hours for her to die would have been an extended stay in Hell.
When she died, one of her sons was holding her right hand and one of her daughters was holding her left hand. Her other children were gathered around her.
Her death was quiet. The time between each breath grew longer and longer and soon there was no next breath.
One minute she was alive and breathing. The next minute—with no change in her expression—she was dead.
While she was dying, we played her favorite gospel and country music on her stereo. She died as her favorite singer, John Denver, was singing about going home again.
People who live in nursing homes tend to have few opportunities to do good deeds that involve money, but one thing she did was to send flowers to the Hickory Creek Nursing Center kitchen to thank the kitchen workers because she liked the food.
People who live in nursing homes tend to have few possessions. Her most valuable possessions were her music CDs, which—as she requested—her children divided among themselves.
An additional possession, which is valuable in educating future doctors, was her body. Months before she died, she donated her body to the Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine. That night, very quickly after she died, her body was taken away to the college.
That was her final good deed. Her gift will allow a future doctor to be taught how to help people.
People treated her well, both in life and in death.
As a very ill patient, she spent time in O’Bleness Hospital in Athens and in Doctors Hospital in Nelsonville. At each hospital, she received excellent care.
Of course, she spent much time at Hickory Creek Nursing Center in The Plains. No one who works there is paid even half what his or her work is worth. In this society, a bad actor in a bad TV series can make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year while the people doing very much more valuable work in nursing homes make very much less money.
Because of my mother, I see the value of such government programs as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. I see how valuable they are in helping provide care for old people. If anything, more money should be poured into these programs and more money should be poured into the government programs that help children. (Healthy adults such as myself should work and pay the taxes that support these programs.)
Of special note is a good deed performed by the Reverend Denver Dodrill. Not being a church-going man—I went to church when my mother went before she began living in nursing homes—I hadn’t seen him in two or three years. However, I called him and he came to pray with my mother and read to her Psalm 23, which includes, “Yea, thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me ….”
As my mother lay dying, and after, Hickory Creek Nursing Center treated her children well. They provided a private room for her, one big enough for all seven of her children and a few other relatives to sit in. We also made use of the chapel.
Many people helped my mother and took care of her and comforted her children. She was much loved—and not just by her children.