This is a night that stays with me forever.
The fourth Sunday in September. The turn of summer to autumn. The night we sat - my aunt, my brother, and his partner - as we listened and waited for our mother to pass from this life to the next.
It was the part of the journey on which we could no longer accompany her. She no longer responded to our voices or to our touch. The silence broken only by her watery, raspy breaths and the whoosh of the machine that administered pain medication. We pushed that button every 20 minutes: push, whoosh, and wait.
All night.
And then, as the light of dawn began to break, there was only silence. The silence and freedom of eternal peace.
