These Sisters

Aunt Fay came over to see Aunt Winnie today, to tell her that her husband had died. As soon as she walked in, Aunt Winnie said, "Keith is gone?" and so she just nodded and didn't mention it any more. My daughter, my niece and I arrived soon after. Aunt Grace was there, too. She had flown down from Toronto to be with her baby sister last week, so that she wouldn't have to attend her husband's end without at least one sister there. Today, when she came to visit Aunt Winnie, she took one look at her and decided she was in sore need of a haircut. I dispatched my daughter to get scissors from our house, and when she came back, Grace set about sprucing up her big sister, determinedly working around the fact that she is bed bound. My daughter held the plastic basket, the home attendant and I helped turn her as Aunt Grace trimmed and combed like a pro. My niece helped hold her head up so Aunt Grace could get the back of her hair. It was a group effort with more laughs than you might think, and after, Aunt Winnie looked as if she had been to the salon. As Aunt Grace worked, Aunt Fay sipped soup and seemed lost in her thoughts. She said she was still on auto pilot. But later in the kitchen, she told us about Uncle Keith's last days. She said they all gathered around him on Friday, fourteen of them in all, including his three children and three grandsons, and after the doctor pulled the plug on the ventilator they just waited. He stayed with them for another hour, Aunt Fay said, and when his breathing seemed to being getting lower, his younger daughter put her finger on his neck, wanting to feel his last pulse. My aunt held his hand in one of hers, her other hand on his head. On his last exhale, my cousin said she felt a warm breath of air pass around her, and in it she felt such peace. "It was a beautiful death," Aunt Grace said, hugging me and crying a little. "We won't all be so lucky. It was a very good way to go."