where you go to die

Hospitals are horrible places even when you are doing something joyous like having a child. But when you are old and infirm they are crowded places of innumerable indignities where you wait to die.

Elsie (who is 94) went into the hospital last week due to improper kidney function. Doctors say she can never live alone again and may not leave the hospital. She seems remarkably in fair spirits considering where she is. The ward is dingy and sad. The smell of moth balls, medicine and musty old women is pungent in the air.

I hope (should I reach as ripe an old age as Elsie) that someday I'm rich enough to die alone at home well cared for by a live-in nurse and not a burden to my family.

Not to say that Elsie is on deaths door...but at 94 she's been living on borrowed time for almost 20 years. That said - knowing her - she'll survive another year at least. I just hope for her sake it isn't in that place.