Read parts 1-3 here: Final Breath (part 1-3) – Dana Enache
Audio version here: https://youtu.be/ez9pCk1SBuQ
PART 4 Active dying stage
MARK
September 1st 2024
Nobody should go through the death of a loved one without knowing exactly what that entitles. How lucky am I to understand that what is happening right now to my love is completely normal! I know she’s not in any pain, physically or emotionally. She isn’t even lucid anymore. I know that everything happening to her body right now follows natural progression. It’s a process that allows the body to turn off peacefully. I’ve seen it so many times.
But if I hadn’t been a palliative worker, I would have been frightened. Maybe I would have thought she might be hurt. Painfully aware of her rasping, her inability to eat or drink anything at all, unconscious for the last two days, her skin changing shades every hour. And her touch… it’s terrible to feel her hand warm like she has a fever one minute and then ice cold the next one.
The worst part though is the death rattle. Those gurgling sounds every dying person makes when approaching their last breath. I can hear them now from the other room. The sound is a result of fluids accumulating in her upper chest and throat. She is unable to swallow or cough anymore so the secretions pile up there. Every breath she takes goes through these and comes out like a rattle of some sorts.
I can’t see her like this.
Even if I completely understand the process, it’s still hard to witness her floating away.
Dying.
LELIANA
The Angel is here again. His faceless head tilts sometimes at me. Max hasn’t come yet. I want to go with him. Where is my son?
I can’t breathe.
It hurts.
My mind is still working, but my body stinks of decay.
If I am dying, why am I so… aware of it?
Where is Max?
The Angel stretches his face and in the middle of that nothingness a hole rips.
I am scared.
Mark, help me, love.
The Angel is at the foot of my bed. His hands dangle by his sides, his mouth now bigger, putrid stench coming out of it. Mark seems completely unaware of this. He sits on his chair and holds my hand. I can feel his warm skin. He is not saying anything, but deep sobs escape his chest from time to time.
Why isn’t he helping me?
The Angel climbs on top once again, his legs straddling my hips.
I want to scream, but my body does not react.
Mark let’s go of my hand.
NO!
I don’t want to be alone!
The Angel’s hands come crashing down on my chest. He is pushing. I feel like I’m sinking into the mattress. The weight is crushing.
I am dying.
Max.
I want my baby.
Please. Just one more time to hold him.
Please.
I can’t breathe.
PART 5 Moment of death
MARK
September 2nd 2024
It’s done. She has passed.
Leliana is no more.
I don’t know if I have the strength to write all of this down. But… I need to let go of this awful feeling that I have.
This horrible sensation that something terrible has happened.
I have been with patients dying so many times before. I am not easily affected. People live and people die. And if they manage to reach an old age and the process comes naturally to them, I consider it a blessing. So many others don’t get that chance. Countless of young people dying in hospitals, on roads as a result of accident. Thousands of children perishing from incurable illnesses, from negligence, from unknown reasons. Like Max.
So when an old person finally reaches their final days, it’s a blessing. All those years lived, all those memories left behind. Their legacy doesn’t die with them. It lives on inside the people that love them.
So why is it that this morning felt like Leliana’s passing wasn’t peaceful?
Why do I have this tight sensation in my stomach that whatever happened in her final moments was anything but a blessing? What if it was like she slipped into a nightmare from which she will never wake up again?
The signs of her passing were all there. All normal.
Her breath was not rhythmic. She would take one inhale and then I would hear nothing for a few good seconds. Then she would take another one. And with each, my own breathing slowed, waiting. I didn’t know which one would be her final one.
Then… it happened. She took a deep breath in and on her exhale I thought… God, sounds ridiculous to even write it here in my journal. But I could swear I heard her say ‘help’. Which is impossible. She hasn’t been aware of anybody or her surroundings for quite some time now. She would have been incapable of any type of speech at this point.
I didn’t have time to think this through as her face suddenly relaxed, her jaw fell and her eyelids remained slightly open. It was the end.
Her final breath.
And I could swear… with it she had asked for help.
LELIANA
The Angel ripped off my clothes and violated me with its long fingers. It pushed them inside without mercy until I felt the flesh ripping and agonizing pain flooded my senses. And while my body didn’t move and my mouth didn’t make one sound, I screamed and trashed inside my mind as hard as I could. It ignored me and placed its other hand on my face, its nails growing until they reached my nostrils, my ears and my eyes. And then he pushed his fingers into them without mercy. I felt my eyeballs pop, liquid coming down my cheeks. My ears bled and I was left without sight or hearing, while its fingers kept pushing through my insides down below, ripping through my uterus. Its other hand was still going deep, nails digging into my aware brain.
I thought my vocal cords would rip from the intensity of the screaming, but that was not possible for I was only making those sounds in my mind while my body stayed unresponsive.
After a while… it was done.
There is darkness all around me now, engulfing and unforgiving. The only thing I was allowed to keep is my thoughts. They still rush around my mind, unbroken, free, while my body is a husk, a carcass of what had been once a woman.
…
Max.
…
I would give anything to see my child one more time. To embrace him. To tell him he is loved.
I would let the Angel torture me again if I could get one more moment with Max.
Where is my baby?
…
Help.
PART 6 – After death
LELIANA
I open my eyes to the nothingness around me. There is a baby crying, I can hear it now. I wonder how is that possible since the Angel took my senses.
But there is no mistaking the sound. Somewhere, really close, a baby needs me.
I try to walk but there is no ground underneath my feet, there is no space around me. I can’t place myself anywhere. It’s like I don’t have a body anymore.
The baby starts wailing harder and I force myself to think. I need a solution. If I can understand what I am hearing, then surely I can do something about it.
There is a stench now around me. A decaying aroma. Putrid. Disgusting.
Where am I?
The baby still cries and I am unable to help it.
But my eyes… they adjust to the darkness. I can see the rest of my body, but it’s like I’m looking through a foggy glass.
Something tickles my cheek.
My body… I’m wearing a white dress. But it’s dirty. And my skin… it’s wrinkled.
That baby. I… need to help it. I had a baby. What was his name?
The stench is getting unbearable.
I need to move.
My eyes clear a little bit more.
Oh, God.
My body….
No.
Worms.
Eating away.
The stench…. It’s coming from me.
From my rotting corpse.
Where am I?
My baby!
Where is my baby?
Ahhh….
MARK
20th November 2024
Today I left flowers at Leliana’s grave.
There was a mother with a screaming baby visiting the next grave. We talked. She had lost her husband to cancer a year ago.
She was beautiful. Reminded me of my wife when she was young.
Is it wrong to say I find another woman beautiful?
I could never love another one, not like I did before. But… I must find the strength to move on and live the rest of my days as happy as I can, now that my wife is at peace.
THE END
