Witnessing death both heart breaking, soul strengthening

was present for death only one time in my 36 years of life. I consider this both a bad and a good thing. It's bad because I did not want my grandmother to die -- and watching it happen made it so real, so vivid, so painful. I don't think I would have ever chosen to watch my grandma die -- to watch her slip from consciousness to coma, to observe her altered body once death arrived, to witness the movement of her body on a stretcher as it was wheeled out of the house from the bedroom I still see every time I visit my mom's house. But I think I am lucky really -- and this is the good part -- because I got to be with her during her final moments.
I got to watch her body as it lay still, peaceful and calm and still breathing. I got to talk to her and although she could not respond, I believe she could hear my words. And it makes me happy to know my grandma may have known I was with just prior to her flight to heaven. And after her flight, I got to touch her cool hands. I got to feel the power of the passing of one life -- a long life -- and I got to feel the comfort of a death that was not ugly or painful or difficult. It was sad -- it's still sad -- that my grandma died three years ago. But what a privilege it was to be part of the day she left this world.

Susan DeWilde left this world in much the same way -- with loved ones by her side. She was a fighter and had conquered several rounds of breast cancer, a tumor in her spinal cord, uterine cancer, lymphatic cancer, and then leukemia, which took her life at the age of 53. I don't know this from Susan herself but from her friend, Christy Mack -- who helped her accept her death and guided her into her own final moments so that she could escape her pain and die peacefully. Christy writes about her beautiful friend and her empowering death in an article that appears in the August 2006 Oprah Magazine. Titled Friends to the End, Christy's story details how she soothed her friend, cradled her hand, and talked her through her last breaths. She helped her on her way during a time her friend feared most. Christy writes, "What she and I shared the night she died was a precious gift of friendship, emotionally profound and sacred in its perfection. It broke my heart. It strengthened my soul."