The End of Lives

Katherine Tanney once again made the NY Times Sunday magazine with a thoughtful and eloquent essay about the end of her parent’s lives. It was bittersweet and all too typical. Her father, who had always been the reliable post,turns into a needy alzheimer patient and the mother just can’t cope. While we can easily judge the woman who went from having a husband who orders her food for her to a sadly sick man who wanders the streets and can’t control his bladder, it is never that simple.

A life like so many others that ends in this debilitating, painful way teaches us how tricky and merciless the world really is. Here is Tanney’s eloquent last paragraph.

“I used to think the final moment of life was the moment of truth, and I worried about it. I attempted bizarre feats of imagination, such as trying to will my own death during a moment of exquisite happiness. “Now,” I coaxed the universe, my eyes shut, my breath on hold. “Take me now.” Because I knew all too well what tends to follow exquisite happiness, and I desperately wanted the universe to make an exception for me.”