Sunday, October 2, 2011

My Cousin (Update)

In a previous post, I had written about my cousin calling me in regards to her ailing mom.  Well, about a week and a half after the call, I was on a plane to sit in the hospital with my aunty-cousin, her mom (she's my cousin, but her and my mom had a sisterly bond).  When I got to the hospital, I was SHOCKED.  My aunty-cousin looked like a fraction of herself.  She was semi-conscious, and I think, she may have known I was there.  I'm not sure.

There was pressure on the day of my arrival, as the hospital was insistent that my aunt be transferred to another facility that day.  Around 11.30pm that night, the ambulance arrived so my aunt could be moved.  We got her comfortable at the new facility and left around 1.30am.  The next morning we were back at the facility to see my aunt and I noticed my aunt had diminished overnight.  She looked...dead to me.  Her eyes had a gray film and her hands were stiffened.  But, we put on a brave face and took care of my aunt-rubbing her, talking to her etc.  One of my aunty's tongue-talking-bible-thumping-wheezing sisters from the church came to the room to pray and lay hands on my aunt.  I gave the woman a look of pity as she tied her tongue in a knot as she spoke her spiritual gibberish and slathered that ungodly oil onto her forehead. smh  My dad came to the room to sit with us.

Shortly afterwards, my cousin and I had to leave and run errands.  When we returned to my d my aunt's room she was having a breathing treatment.  By that time, my other cousin had arrived and was holding the oxygen mask over my aunty's face as it kept slipping down her face.  She told we needed to massage my aunt in a certain way so as to increase her circulation.  While she was schoolin' us...my aunt's head slumped forward.

Time froze.

My aunt had just died.

She died in front of us.

She was gone that quick.  We were in the room all of four fucking minutes and she was gone.  Needless to say, I fucking lost it!

I would love to go into detail about the atrocious display of selfishness I witnessed after my aunt's death...but I'm too goddamn embarrassed.  I will say this-she had 9 christian siblings, a husband who's a deacon at the church, a church she was active in, but it  took her ATHEIST niece to put a spray of flowers across her casket.