One night last month Jip went to sleep and didn’t wake up. The story isn’t quite that simple, but basically she made as gentle an exit from this life as anyone could hope for.She spent her last day giggling and smiling. Her passing was sudden. I was beside her at the end, along with a close friend of both of ours who happened to be visiting Bangkok and one of Jip’s caregivers.
The most immediate cause of death was an intestinal blockage. Possibly, the nerves in charge of digestion had been damaged by multiple sclerosis, the disease Jip lived with courageously for twenty years. Those same damaged nerves meant that she didn’t feel any pain.
I miss her, of course. But I’m also happy that this way she is able to avoid further progression of MS, which had been blessedly stable ever since our return to Thailand six years ago. My own grieving began long before that, as I watched the disease take away so many of her abilities. Happily, MS never managed to rob her of the ability to, in her words, “water the seeds of joy.” She continues to inspire us with her wisdom.
2 comments:
I was wondering what you would post. You put it beautifully. We'll miss her.
Love, Laura
My very deepest condolences John. She will be missed for as long as there are people who remember her.
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