(Written by Marla after she came home on 3/16/18)

"3/18/18
     I felt like this yesterday morning, but not as bad.
     I was lying there wondering if I should just let go.  It would be easy.

     I always liked things easy.  Wrote about strong women and wished I could be like that.

     Coughed up plugs (dried mucus clots from the lungs) - maybe I was just running out of air?  I should only sleep in 3-hour increments.  I guess there's a reason they keep waking you up in the hospital.

     I watched Uchol die (Marla's husband).  It wasn't all pretty like the movies/TV.  He wasn't surrounded by people.  I stood in the corner and wept.  He was unconscious.  When he went, everything came out of him - pee, poop, vomit.  No dignity.  The nurses cleaned him off, told me not to look, and tucked him in so it looked like he was asleep.
     I know I'm stinking - not cleaned properly - same underwear since these pants went on.  Can't get my butt clean - more keeps leaking while I wash.
     Have to wait on the shower - heck, that may be the project of the day! (A CNA came the next day and assisted Marla with a shower).

     Dad was dead when I got there that day.  The last thing I saw him do was a grin and a thumbs up in his hospital bed as I left the day before.  From what Mom said it was a typical (name withheld) drama scene.  Mom got her and others to leave, so it was just her and Dad.  She said that when the others left, he took a deep sigh - and relaxed.  Not long after he was gone.  Maybe it just being between them was what they both wanted.  I'd have just been in the way.
     I drove to the hosp. to find him gone and Mom had left for the house.  So I dealt with it alone, nurses in the hall.  Then went home.  It wasn't him anymore but I needed to see that.  At home, Mom and I just went into each other's arms, hugged and wept.  But not for long.  Dad was the snuggly one.  Weren't we an odd little family of solitaries!
     Mom - that was the worst.  4 hours away and a phone call.  I feel like (name withheld, not me) stole her last hours from me. (I was with Marla's mother about 6 hours before she passed.  We all honestly didn't think she would pass so quickly.  I asked her mother if I should call Marla.  Her mother said no, she didn't want to 'bother' Marla.  I abided by her mother's decision.  Marla never held that against me.  She knew her mother's reasons were her own.  Marla wouldn't have made it from Albuquerque to El Paso in time, anyway.)

     Cliché catch-phrase of my generation.  'What a long strange trip it's been.'

     Would you believe someone gave Diane a check-sheet of what to expect in a dying cancer patient?
     I've never done a thing in my life that would follow a check-sheet.  Not from baby development on!  Why would I start now?  Of course, they don't know that."