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Don’t Throw Away 100s of Stimulating Writing Prompts
Stress can lead to hasty decisions. Don’t make the decision I made.
January 2017 was probably the worst month of my life.
On the 10th, I learned that my mom had fallen in the shower. Four days later, the doctors told her the reason she’d fallen was that she’d unknowingly been battling pneumonia, probably since before Christmas. My mom started telling me where to find her insurance policy and her prepaid funeral papers. I thought she was overreacting. People get pneumonia all the time.
She wasn’t overreacting.
Friday night the 20th I accidentally turned my phone’s ringer off. I woke up to find several calls from the hospital and one from my uncle. Mama had suffered a massive heart attack overnight and was on life support with no chance of recovery. As her power of attorney, they called to ask my wishes.
“If you kept her on life support until I could get over there, would she know I’m in the room?” I asked the doctor.
“No, she wouldn’t,” came the reply.
“Then go ahead and take her off,” I replied. A little while later, I got the call that she had passed away peacefully, in no pain.
