My Father’s Dying Days Showed Me There’s No Such Thing as “Death with Dignity”: Narrative.ly

My father is dying and no one is trying to save him.

“You don’t even give IV fluids?” I ask the hospice nurse.

“No, he’s on his own journey now.”

But a person can’t travel without water, I think.

I try to be reassured by the nurse’s words even as I see my father grasp for the liquid-soaked sponge lollipop we place against his parched lips. The thimble of water remains pooled in his mouth. Alzheimer’s disease doesn’t just make minds weak; bodies, too, forget how to function.

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