My dying wife.
I will never forget it. The wind‑wide open eyes… the pupils.
When she was still able to speak, she already told me that giving birth to a child was nothing compared to the pain she had. But those final moments must have been many times worse.
At that moment I didn’t know it, but the autopsy showed that her large intestine had ruptured. For a week, the nurses had pushed her to keep eating, even though she had no bowel movements at all.
Officially she died from the poisoning caused by the ruptured colon. But I don’t believe it can be fatal that quickly (a few minutes). I think she literally died from the pain. Something you can only understand if you had seen her eyes. She couldn’t say anything anymore, but I could read everything in them.
I sometimes hear people say… “I’m dying from the pain.” I don’t even know if that’s truly possible. But if anyone would know, it would be my late wife.
Kitty. 1963–2002. RIP.