To go towards the light

My best friend's mum is dying.

She's in a lot of pain and has been for a number of years because of rheumatism.

She 's had a lot of hardship in her life:

·      her fistborn, a son, died soon after he was born;

·      she lost one of her fingers in an potato harvester;

·      she contracted tetanus and lay in a lung machine for 6 weeks, for she couldn't breath  herself (her lungs never were the same);

·      she had something on her ear auricle which had to be removed, and then part of the  ear auricle, and then the whole. She had an artificial ear auricle which didn't work (wouldn't stick?).

Now she has is Kahler's disease: a cancer of the blood, the white blood cells in particular and therefore the bone marrow.  She's had a number of treatments; not to be cured but to slow it down.

Now she has no more energy to hold the pain at bay. Her morfine plasters make her sick above a certain dosage.

She 's in hospital, waiting for a transfer to a nearby hospice.

Will she have that much time?

I hope she'll die in the intimacy of the hospice, with her daughters and husband near her. Please not under the harsh lamplight of the hospital.

She's afraid of dying.

But she's very fortunate to have a husband and a daughter who have both crossed the line once; the line between the living and the dead. They can both reassure her that it's not  so bad to die, to go towards the light: to enter this state of constant bliss.

This is what I'm thinking of when I see the bright fabrics of the quilt I'm working on.

Such big contrast.


Later the same day:
My friend called this afternoon to tell me her mum has crossed over ...