Mudminnow River Born Queen

"You make it sound so easy," Sarah said with a sad smile. If "passing away" was just as simple as the words implied, as they told in the stories, never revealing that the reality of dying was much worse. There was no dignity in it, no beauty, no ease. 

"Mom was never really well - you recall that, don't you?" she asked him, because, perhaps, he had forgotten Osprey's bouts of sadness and withdrawal from the world. The shell was there, while the spirit roamed elsewhere. Sarah did not know that their mother had passed it on and that her brother had suffered from the same disease. 

"It never was as bad as we saw it in our childhood, but looking at her you could feel that she was walking on the edge. That "all is well" was just an illusion," she went on. "And she got very sick this summer, something was eating her up from inside, she was wasting away before our eyes and still kept up a happy face, even on days, when it was an effort for her to get up and move," she said, looking straight ahead now, her gaze far off. 

"She never complained, until I caught her one evening sobbing quietly and whimpering, while dad tried to soothe her as best as he could," Sarah paused and looked at Terance. "You would expect that at this point in the story the person passes away peacefully in their sleep, but not mom. It got worse and worse, and still she would wake up from every slumber, forced to live another day," never had she seen that life could be a curse. 

"And I wished I could end this for her. And I saw dad had the same thoughts, but the horror of, what we were about to do, was too great," and now Sarah was crying openly. "Because, what kind of daughter kills her own mother... what kind of husband kills his wife... we couldn't do it and she continued to suffer..."