Sitting with my older brother as he is dying. It seems it’s almost the most intimate time in someone’s life and to be able to share with them is sacred.
It is late, been at the hospital for 7 hours. The hospital is quiet now it is almost midnight. I hear my brother’s rhythmic breathing, it becomes comforting, an outward acknowledgement that he is still here.
His hands are warm, but he doesn’t respond at all. I play music for him, tell him stories of earlier times. Tell him I wish we could have been closer, but we were 14 years apart.
Still there is closeness and familiarity and letting him die alone doesn’t seem right. His oxygen bubbles, the clock ticks and I sit listening to his breathing, until I don’t.
