In the Midst of Life

loss accentuated the growth in her abdomen, and now she looked as if she were seven or eight months pregnant. Her pain was increasing, and the prescribed analgesics no longer relieved it. One night it became so unbearable that she rang her GP, who arranged for hospital admission immediately.
    I visited her in hospital towards the end of July. When I walked in, I thought she was unconscious, but no, she smiled and took my hand.
    ‘They’ve given me something to relieve the pain,’ she said. ‘It feels easier. I wish they would give me an enema. I feel I need a good clear out.’ Her faith in enemas was touching. Had she stillnot been told, or had she, perhaps, guessed the truth?
    Apparently not, because her next remark was, ‘I’m wondering if I’ve got shingles. It can be very painful you know, my cousin had it.’
    She drifted off into sleep again and I sat stroking her hand. Then someone came round with a drinks trolley, and she had a little water. A nurse emerged with the evening drugs, but she passed Leah’s bed. ‘I’ve told them I’m not having any more pills,’ Leah said, ‘nothing.’ There was a pause, then, ‘I’m sure it was the pills that made me so sick. But no more, I’ve told them. And I don’t feel as sick, now. I feel better without them.’
    Did she know that it was the pills keeping her heart and circulation going that had sustained life in her through the months since the accident? She was a highly intelligent woman, and it seems unlikely that she did not know. Perhaps she had discussed it with her granddaughter, the Israeli trained nurse.
    Yet I had never discussed it with her, or the present fact of progressive cancer, or the inevitability of death. Mutual friends told me that she had never mentioned death to them, either, which is surprising because most old people – well short of one hundred and three – will say things like ‘I’ll be glad when it’s all over,’ or ‘I’ve had a good life. I’m tired now, and want it to end.’ My grandfather talked of the Angel of Death; others speak of going to meet their loved ones. The only time Leah had mentioned death was fourteen months earlier, when she had looked out of the hospital window at the blue sky and said, so wistfully, ‘I hope this is not the end. Life is so beautiful, so exciting, so interesting. I don’t want it to end.’
    Her passion for life had sustained and driven her through all the months of coping alone. Yet now I felt her life force was waning. She could struggle no more, and she knew it. Was that why she had announced she would have no more pills? Had she known all along that it was the pills that had kept her going and that rejecting them would mean the end? Was this Leah’s way of closing the door?
    A nurse came up to the bed and gave her an injection.
    ‘Is that morphine?’ I whispered. Our eyes met.
    ‘Yes,’she said briefly.
    ‘I’m glad,’ I said softly. The nursed smiled and moved away.
    It was high summer – long bright evenings with no wind. But the sun sinks eventually, though it seems it never could, and when I left Leah that evening I felt her light was going out, and that I would not see her again.
    Leah died on 8th August, 2008. Her family were with her.
    Cancer can sometimes lead to a hard and difficult death. It was so for Leah, and her daughter and granddaughters told me of this. They couldn’t understand how her body managed to sustain life for so long. I think I can. Her love of life had been her strength and driving force. She had led a privileged life, with a happy childhood and a happy marriage – who could ask for more? She had also enjoyed good health until the age of a hundred and two when she broke her leg. Three times – the break itself, the embolism, the hospital infection – she had nearly died, and each time it would have been a relatively quick and easy death. But three times modern medicine had pulled her through and kept her alive until cancer intervened. I wondered how Leah would have reacted if she had been able to see ahead.
    If the Angel of Death had shown Leah the manner in which she would die, I am quite sure she would, like most of us, have said, ‘Oh no – not that. Isn’t there an easier way? Anything would be preferable.’ But if the Angel of Life had stepped in at that moment, and shown her fourteen months of increasing difficulty, but also of friendship and family love, I am quite sure she would have said to Death, ‘If yours is the