gwyn | A hole in the world

My twin sister is gone. She died last night, in pain and afraid. I happened to be with her, after others had left, because I just thought I would hang around, hold her hand and read my magazine and watch Alias on low. They had to wake her to move her, since she'd kicked us all out of her room earlier in the day for rest, and had been sleeping in the same position for hours. She insisted, still, on getting up to move to go to the toilet, and unfortunately by the time they got her back into bed, I could see that something was gone in her, and after a little while she stopped breathing altogether. I wasn't expecting it then, I thought maybe another day since she wanted so badly to see her friends who were coming today. But she was just destroyed by the tumors, and so weak, and the moving and being frightened because things were different (it's the only time she's ever called for me to help her), did her in.

She fought so hard and it was so terrible. She didn't want to go to the hospice in-patient center. It was beautiful, though, and even though her friend bullied her into it, which I resented, I knew she needed to go. They tried to manage her pain and I think they had gotten her there, comfortable, but she was deteriorating so fast that the moving just was too much. The EMTs who came for her in the ambulance were really good looking, and that seemed to help her and made her smile when we teased her about the hotties who were going to carry her off to her chariot. I can't say enough about the wonderful people at the hospice center. It looked like a spa, and they had so many things to offer and such kind people. I'm so sorry that she never got the chance to do those things, to feel better.

I called my father, but I didn't call anyone else except her primary caregiving friend, which some of her friends have complained about. But I knew she wouldn't want anyone to see her dead. I stayed at her house alone last night to stay with the kitties, and now I have a house full of her friends, cleaning things out, and I'm overwhelmed, and they're so loud. But she loved them so much I can't bear to kick them out, though I've asked if it's possible for them to stay elsewhere tonight.

We had so little time. When people tell me that god doesn't take people who aren't ready to go, or that everyone accepts at the end, or that she knew I was there and was comforted, I want to scream. It's such crap. She was in terrible shape, and she didn't know I was there or hear or see me. I didn't want to watch anyone else die in my arms again, and I still ended up doing that, by accident. And all I can see is her face and her pain. No one understands that, so they keep lecturing me about all the things I should be thinking or feeling. She would tell me, when I said that, "Welcome to my world." I miss her so much already.

I know most people have never met her, even people who know me in real life. But if you felt like making a donation to an organization in her name, some good ones are The Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, the wonderful people at the San Diego Hospice & Palliative Care, and especially the San Diego Humane Society Animal Rescue Reserve, an organization she was dedicated to and a concern for which she risked her life during the fires a few years ago, getting animals out of fire zones. You can make a donation in the name of Andy Runciman, and I think that would make her heart glad, wherever she is. She was a really good person who had a really, really bad end, and I know she would love to know that something good came out of her pain.