There was nothing particularly climactic or noble about my mother’s dying hour. In fact, some of her children’s life-long elbowing was not entirely absent. Sister 3 asked me, a bit sharply, I thought, to move away from my mother so she could speak to her. My brother, on Face Time, had an instruction or two for those present that provoked a few eye rolls.
No, we certainly weren’t perfectly behaved. But, on the other hand, no one had rehearsed for this and perhaps it was to be expected that we’d all be awkward, not quite knowing our lines or how precisely to behave. Out on a limb as we were, with the shock of having death so near, I’m glad that we were largely consoling and gracious to one another. And then I have to believe that watching our mother die made an intense impression on us. I know it did for me. I have a much more vivid sense of what my life will eventually come to.