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March 26, 2017
“Billy, come now – his breathing has changed.”
Maurine, who has been at the side of many patients as they die, tells us this is the last phase, but that it could go on for many hours, days maybe. A little while ago, I looked around the room, crowded with bedsheets, towels, pads, medications, an oxygen tank and other medical equipment, and I began clearing it out, all of it. First, I brought in stacks of all of O’s books, cleared a bedside table, and put them there. I brought in a cycad plant and a fern. Kate joined me, and we cleared more space, making room on another table for some of O’s beloved minerals and elements, his fountain pens, a ginkgo fossil, his pocket watch. Elsewhere, a few books by his heroes – Darwin, Freud, Luria, Edelman, Thom Gunn – and photos – his father, Auden, his mother as a girl with her 17 siblings, his aunts and uncles, his brothers. We brought in flowers, candles. I am heartbroken but at peace. Last night, before getting some sleep, I came in to see if he needed anything. “Do you know how much I love you?” I said. “No.” His eyes were closed. He was smiling, as if seeing beautiful things. My life with Oliver Sacks: âHe was the most unusual person I had ever knownâ | Books | The Guardian
Posted by gerardvanderleun at March 26, 2017 9:21 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.