Tonight, in the other house on the property a woman is dying.

She is actively dying.

I don't really know who she is. I realized this just now. I was sad and scared as hell and went across to get more beer. I'm at 12 now, and this has to be the least drunk I've ever been on 12 beer.

I went to get the beer and mom came downstairs and said "Oh, beer thieves."

"yes. we'll replace it. Seeing Ans like that scared the hell outta me."

"Well. At least you came and saw her. I guess you've grown into a man."

"Yeah... but a geeky man. After I saw that, the first song I listened to was 'always look on the bright side of life'"

"you should drink your beer and then go to bed."

"I won't though. I'll be up if and when she passes."

"I know."

Ans.... well Joanna Herfst was a wonderful woman. This year she's 94. She was in the olympics in 1928 as a rowing exhibition. She was in the dutch underground. I don't know much about either. She was never given any recognition for either of those things. You know Anne Frank? Anne Frank sat in an attic, and people think she was a war hero. Ans rode through the German lines over bridges and through checkpoints on a bicycle. She was never caught, and eventually she escaped to Canada. She also looked after the jewelry of a well to do jewish family and gave it all back at the end of the war.

This is a selfless woman. This is a woman who never thought of herself as important in the midst of what must have felt like the end of the world. Think about it. You're in the dutch underground. There is infrequent radio communication. The Nazis run the show. You don't really know whether anyone is coming to save you. She still went over bridges and through checkpoints on a one speed piece of rusted bicycle shit.

This is a woman who has lived to a ripe old age. 94 is a good one. She has outlived all of her friends, and for the last two years she has claimed to my brother and I, when the rest of the family was out of earshot, "I never wanted to be this old."

She is now actively dying. She aspirated some pudding. tapioca, I think. She would have laughed if 60 years ago, you had said to her "No, the nazis won't shoot you. You'll inhale pudding." That's how a war hero dies. pneumonia caused by pudding inhalation.

Tonight, when I saw her. I went upstairs and found my mom(the coroner) and the nurse sitting with her. Ans can only look in one direction. Cannot move her head. She coughs, gasping for air every five or six seconds. This is why I'm drunk. This is a horrible way for anyone to die. This is not something I should have seen. I should have stayed in my own house. I should have made dinner and watched olympic highlights. I saw her dying instead.

I don't know who she really is. Her son will come tomorrow, and I will ask him, if he has time. I don't know why she lived with us, I will ask my parents at the wake. I don't know whether even a good life is worth seeing through, I've seen the outcome of the person I respect most in the world. It was terrible.

I love her like my own grandma. She's gone now.. or soon. We won't know until dawn.

I'm Jordan. I'm angry as hell at god. I've been listening to Johnny Cash and drinking beer since I saw her dying. I only cried twice.

JJT

Bless her.

My grandfather suffered for 2 weeks before he passed.

Watching someone you love die is horrible.

I think of him everyday. And no, it doesn't ever get easier with the passing of time.

She sounds like an extradinary woman. I'm sorry for your loss.

This is a god-awful thing to go through my friend... but I just had my uncle die of cancer as well, not sooner than last week... and well, Johnny Cash and beer will get you through it.

Sorry for your loss.

Shit man. I'm sorry to hear about that. I can't offer anything but my sympathy and my ear, if you need it.