I witnessed my mother pass Friday, November 28th at 9:20 p.m.

She suffered tremendously in the days, months and years before her death. She turned the corner and began her final approach around June. That's when the cancer nearly broke her leg, forcing an emergency surgery from which she didn't really recover.

In what feels like a world ago, she was first diagnosed in 1995. In many ways she endured an 8 and-a-half-year descent.

She kept turning corners, it seemed, as she got nearer. The cancer in the right side of her body spread to the bone in early 2001. Sometime early this year she lost most function of her right arm. In the summer it was her leg, enormously swollen, which caused endless pain.

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She suffered, wheezed and constantly changed positions in bed to somehow deal with the intractable pain all day Thanksgiving and Friday. She was conscious and could respond to every question we asked her. Although it was hard for her to talk, she could.

7:30 p.m. We were near crying on each side holding her hands certain she was near death. I asked if she remembered family hugs with Jessie. She nodded confidently, instantly. The tears poured forth as three minds recollected a forgotten event. From 1984-1998 we owned a mixed breed terrier named Jessie. During our younger years, the four of us used to hug and my mother would call it a family hug. It was just a whimsical activity that families do. It was unique for our family, but not unique within the context of families in general. Like the invented languages that siblings create, it was our definition of self, unity, love. This tradition, those particular instances that defined the tradition, all cycled through our minds simultaneously, knowing that one mind soon would no longer be able to revisit fond loving memories.

Some things are best left unsaid.

Around 9:20 she removed the oxygen from her nose and pulled the apparatus off her ears. My brother and I held her hands as her breathing slowed to forced gasps every 10 seconds. Each one we hoped would be the last. Those memorial moments between gasps, eternal. Like the infinite second between heartbeats. In a healthy person, we're fairly certain the next beat will come. We were fairly certain each gasp would be her last.

No more breaths, no more pain. But we weren't certain. We hugged a corpse for an indefinate period before making phone calls and calling the nurse.

The human capacity for suffering is indeed endless. Her suicide, albeit a technicality considering her condition, proves that only the conscious mind can curtail the spirit's ability to suffer. She ended her suffering, but she had to decide to end her life in order for this to happen. I probably will continue to deconstruct 11/28/03 for the rest of my life, but no meaning will be gleaned other than what was on the surface. I will not truly understand her in those moments until I am in my own deathbed. The images of that night will haunt me forever. I am glad children are not born with such images etched into their minds as it would cause the decimation of humanity.

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