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Sandy Gerling is an artist, writer, and former registered nurse whose work recently appeared in the anthology Variations on the Ordinary: A Women’s Reader (Plain Views Press). She lives in Birmingham, Michigan.
It was late November, and I was visiting my parents. Dad was asleep in a rented hospital bed in my sister’s old room; he was dying of lung cancer. Mom and I talked over coffee at the kitchen table.
July 1997She had lung cancer that had metastasized to her spine, liver, abdomen — everywhere except her brain. She was aware and alert and could feel it all. When I would come into the room, she’d ask me if I would help her die; she couldn’t go on this way. In those days, a patient would have to wait three hours between pain shots.
February 1994Has something we published moved you? Fired you up? Did we miss the mark? We’d love to hear about it.
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