Morphine

They have managed an angiogram on Rian's mother's mother.

Apparently she has two completely blocked vessels and one partially blocked.

Because of her age and her mental capacities, they shall not attempt anything further, other than easing fluid from her lungs.

The doctors claim there is roughly a 50-50 chance that she will last the next week to go home, and then, at home, they will try to make her comfortable.

'Make her comfortable' is a phrase Rian often heard in the last pieces of my mother's life. How I hate that phrase! It is the loss of all hope. The giving up and the letting go.

I should not be terribly broken up. She has had a long and eventful life, she is apparently not frightened, enjoying cartoons on the hospital television. She is not aware of pain or fear.

I think...I think, in Rian's mind, she is the last bit of my mother left. I am much more my father's child than my mother's. So, also, is my brother.

It sounds foolish, I know. But in watching my grandmother fade, it is like saying goodbye to the last shadow of my mother.