T The Letting Go

Today, my brother and my mother went to the hospice.

They warned me beforehand that they would most likely ring so that I might have the chance to speak to my grandmother.

They told me, however, that they had struggled to wake her, that she was barely there at all.

When the call came, I answered.

They turned the screen towards her. She was staring blankly into nothing, her gaze fixed on some far-off place I could not follow.

It took her a few seconds to find me with her eyes. Her mouth hung open, dry and cracked, and she could not speak.

I told her she lives in my heart forever.

I told her she is the finest thing this family has ever known.

I told her I love her tremendously, and that I do not want her to suffer.

I told her she has always been so strong, so firm, so unyielding, but that it is all right to let go, mostly when life no longer wishes to hold you.

I told her it is all right to be weak, just this once, and simply pass on.

I told her we shall meet again. Not to worry.

That we shall always be together, in other lives.

When we hung up the video call, the anxiety seized me whole. How could they have let her mouth become so dry?

I admit, if it has been hanging open for any length of time, dryness is inevitable. I accept that they have given her an infusion and some manner of hydration.

But I know her. She hates when her mouth is dry.

I instructed my mother to tell the nurses to dampen a cloth and wet her lips and tongue, as she can no longer swallow, and a cup of water is no longer safe for her.

I cannot believe it did not occur to anyone.

I am angry.

But it is most probably grief , and loss, and love, and every positive and negative emotion a human being is capable of feeling, all tangled together into something I cannot name.

I am horrified to think she might be frightened.

She could not tell me. I do not know what I saw in her eyes.

Was it the sweet oblivion of morphine?

Was it fear, for a life slipping quietly away?

Was it love, her the stubborn, impossible kind, still holding her here?

I do not know. I shall maybe never know.

Did she recognise me? I hope, however, we will not know.

I only hope, with everything I have, that she was aware of me speaking to her, but that she was not aware of the pain, nor the fear.

That she felt the love, and felt nothing else.

---

Wass Albert - Halál

Én úgy képzelem el,
hogy a halál egy óriási nász,
legszentebb, legemberibb ölelés.
Nem fájdalom: fájdalom-felejtő.
Nem rém: rémeket elűző.
Több mint a Szépség.
több mint a Szerelem,
a Jóságnál is több:
Kegyelem.
Én úgy képzelem el,
ha egyszer oly nagy lesz a zaklatás
és akkorára nő a fájdalom,
hogy nem bírom tovább:
hozzám lép egy fehér ismerős,
szép csendesen lecsókolja a számat,
lefogja ezt a vergődő szívet,
és ennyit szól csak: elnémuljatok.
Erre megszűnik minden indulat.
Erre megszűnik minden fájdalom,
csak gondfelejtő békesség marad:
se könny, se vér, se akarat,
nem lesz már semmi sem.
Elhal a szívem dobbanása,
s végtelen álmok néma lánya
bűvös, tüzes csókjába zár.
Szeretőm lesz egy éjszakára
a széparcú Halál.

Albert Wass - Death

I imagine it so, that death is a great wedding-feast, the most sacred, most human embrace. Not pain: pain-forgetting. Not terror: terror-banishing. More than Beauty, more than Love, more even than Goodness: Mercy. I imagine it so, when one day the torment grows too great and the pain swells so large that I can bear it no longer: a white familiar figure steps towards me, quietly kisses my lips closed, stills this struggling heart, and says only this: be silent now. And with that, all passion ceases. And with that, all pain ceases, only care-forgetting peace remains: no tears, no blood, no will, there shall be nothing left at all. My heartbeat fades away, and the silent daughter of endless dreams seals me in her enchanted, fiery kiss. For one night, my lover shall be the beauty-faced Death.