The end of a life is not like the movies

We all know how the story ends. In the movies, the hero's loved one declares faith in the hero's capacity to overcome obstacles and then quietly dies. People die quickly in the movies. If you blink, you'll miss it, it happens that fast. The spirit eases out the window in a flurry of fireflies, ascending to heaven where all good characters go (I'm thinking of Gena Rowland's character in Hope Floats). One moment ago she was here, gazing with love at her daughter, and the next, she's dropped her teacup.

First, when it comes to witnessing the end of a life, there are no heroes. Either that or we are all heroes, flailing valiantly to cope with life on life's terms. Just because sorrow is imminent and overwhelming doesn't make us special. Everyone has sorrow. We're either all heroes or none of us heroes. Movies have to have a hero or we won't watch. Preferably one who isn't dead when the credits roll. I can't stand Nicholas Sparks movies.

Second, I suspect in real life the end of a life usually happens in slow motion . . . really drawn out, excruciatingly tedious slooooooow motion. What they don't show us in the movies are the grinding weeks and months leading up to that transcendent moment when the hero's mother dies. They can't make an entire movie about that process—who could stand it? It would be like My Dinner with Andre. Yeesh. Still, some verisimilitude might be welcome for those of us who could use a dose of reality to stay grounded.

I don't know what I expected this process to be like. Did I think she would be herself up to the very end? Did I imagine she would keel over in the middle of a sentence or cease to be while snoozing on the couch? Somehow I didn't think it would (a) be so excruciating (for me) or (b) take so long.

Once again I show my uncanny ability to take my mother's life and death and make it mine. I'm not the one who is coming to the end of the runway, but it feels like it. Hey, maybe I am, who knows? The big one could hit tomorrow and pancake me into the basement. We all know how our stories will end. We just don't when, where, and how.