Juliet, Dorothy’s carer, was watching her patient breathe after three o’clock one morning over a year ago.
At that time, she had been caring for her confined-to-bed patient for five months. Juliet realised that the breathing would not start again.
She dashed through the lounge and called out to me, sleeping in the computer room.
“Come quickly!” she called. “Why didn’t you call me sooner?” I wanted to scream at her, “I wanted to be with her when she took her last breath!”
Let’s share a learning point, for me, from Dorothy’s last breath. “Come quickly!”
I was so very disappointed with Juliet. I wanted to scream, “Why didn’t you call me sooner?”
But, somehow, I did not voice that question. I just cried over a body that no longer breathed.
Thinking it through later, I understood two things. Firstly, Juliet would not have known when that last breath would occur – we label it only after the event.
Secondly, if I reproached her for not calling me earlier, she would be just as disappointed (with herself) as I was with her. Her self is just as important to her as my self is to me.
There was no going back to relive the past, as we now think it should be done.
“Why didn’t you call me sooner?”
I’m glad I never asked Juliet that. She cares for a man with a brain tumour, now. I wish her well.
And I’m quite aware of my new opinion about opinions.
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