Treated like dogs.

As kids we had two dogs - Zakkie and Sessie - Zakkie, dense as treacle but just as sweet, and Sessie the sharp-as-a-whip fox terrier with fear and trust issues. Sessie died recently, she lived to be about fifteen or sixteen years old. She had a heart attack at my parent's home, dad carried her when he found her (since she did not come for dinner, odd for her) to where we were sitting, it was very clear something was wrong. She was breathing, but cold, and her heart rate was very slow. At the vet's they found out it was a heart attack and that she was dying, and they decided to put her to sleep there so that she would not have a drawn out period of suffering - it was possible for her to keep slowly deteriorating, disorientated, unable to move, cold, in pain, for another night or more. It was, by all accounts, very peaceful. The dog died with her people around her, comforting her. The vet was humane and caring. It was painless (you might even say 'pain relieving') and she was gone.

My grandfather died last year. He fell and hit his head, sustained brain injury, and was in a coma by the next day. Brain dead a day or so later, followed by the difficult decision to turn off the machines that could keep his body going indefinitely. Of course, turning off the machines that ensured he would keep going did not mean he would die. He was in the intensive care area, lying there, and we were waiting for his heart to stop. We waited, stayed, waited, came and went, each unusual bleep of the machine had us asking 'is this it now?'

It was horrible. Sad faces, empty faces. My gran, inconsolable. His large hands were cold and swollen. His face swollen. They had a breathing tube in his mouth (no one knows why) which forced my intelligent, dignified, gentle grandfather to lie there dribbling on his chin, with his mouth open, tongue pressed forward.

The injury to his dignity aside, probably the worst was the change that came over us as we waited. It changed from horrible sadness to a morbid desire for each drawn out beep to be the last one - for it to just end already.

We had long past given up any hope of recovery. It was clear from his face, his hands, that the man we loved was gone.


In every meaningful way, he was dead.

Nothing could be done until his heart stopped on its own, though, or it would be considered murder. But honestly, many of us were, by the end, mentally murdering him as each heartbeat sounded.

A week later he passed away, with no one there.

There is an expression, to treat people like dogs. In this case, though, how I wish I could have given him the same privilege the dog had.