It happened so fast. A visit to the doctor. A diagnosis. A very quiet drive home, my mother, my father, my brother, and me. “I am so glad I just had my teeth cleaned,” my mother said. Then six weeks later, just like the doctor said, it was over. Those six weeks were the fastest and the slowest.

At first, she was awake, up, not in bed. She sat in her comfortable chair. We gathered around, talked, shared. 

Soon, she was tired, too tired. She got in bed, initially sitting up, legs out, blankets over legs, cats over blankets. 

Then, soon again, she slid down, head on a pillow, blanket clutched up at her chin, cats on her stomach or riding the side of her body as if they were balancing on a fence. Mostly she slept, but sometimes she wanted to sit in front of the full-length bathroom mirror. Sit, with the pink Afghan her mother had knit over her shoulders, clutched at her sternum by her bony fingers. She just sat and looked herself in the eye. Sometimes she wanted to sit outside in the coldness of early spring, snow still on the ground. We helped her out onto the porch into a beam of sun, wrapped her in blankets, a hat on her head. Let her sit, just sit, looking out over the garden she had perfected over the many years, out to the stream that ran in front of the home she designed and supervised in its construction, out across the meadow and up to the majestic mountains that rose to 10,000 feet above us.

Then, again too soon, so soon, she just slept. Slept and spoke in her dreams to her parents and others. Sometimes she slapped at the air, speaking to her mother or father in the tones of a petulant small child.

In the night from my room across the hall, I could hear her breathing. In the morning, the first sound I listened for was her irregular breaths in, with sometimes a long hold, then out. I would wait to see if she would breathe in again. She did. Until the sixth week came.

At that moment, I sat next to her. Breath in, breath out, then nothing. It happened so fast. But at least, at least I was there.