Learn how many Americans deal with ailing loved ones who are approaching their last days
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| Illness |
| Watching someone you love deteriorate before your eyes is a tough business. |
| This morning, my mother-in-law called to say that she and my father-in-law were on their way to Louisiana to see her closest cousin, Jimmy. |
| Jimmy is in the end stages of lung cancer, and he will be sent home with hospice care in the next few days. |
| Now, my in-laws have known about Jimmy's state for about a month. However, they waited until the call came that the end was near to drive down to see him. I know that all too often, people wait until it's too late, and then they drive to the funeral. |
| "I know that Jimmy will not be Jimmy when I get there," my mother-in-law said. "I'm just not sure that I want to see him that way." |
| She is I know thinking of her mother who died of cancer back in 1997. |
| She's afraid that she will forget the Jimmy who sat up all night drinking and telling stories in my backyard the night of her son's wedding. That she'll forget the Jimmy who danced with his granddaughter every year at Jazz Fest. Who sucked the brains of crawfish in the blistering heat at the family's annual crawfish boil. |
| I can't help but wonder whether her logic is correct. After all, it won't be long before I am faced with this same prospect. My brother's muscular dystrophy is worsening exponentially every year, and I know that no matter how hard he fights it, the disease will eventually change him from the person I've always known. |
| Of course, I will see my brother as often as he lets me. Chances are, I will make a nuisance of myself. No matter. I will try my best to preserve my memories while spending as much time as I can with my little brother. As his big sister, I believe that that's my job, nuisance or not. |
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