The Death of Beatrice: Reflections on Old Age in America

I don’t know if my mother intended to die on Valentine’s Day. But she did. At nearly ninetysix and a half, Beatrice Katz had reached one of her goals, outliving her oldest sister by a few months. Her hospice nurse, who knew her well, said that she would choose the time to give up her long struggle with pain and debility, and I believed the nurse. My mother had an iron will and had fooled us often enough before, sinking almost to the point of extinction and then bouncing back. After the last episode, she had bounced so far that she was kicked out of hospice until her trajectory reversed and a serious decline set in. So why did my mother choose Valentine’s Day? I think it was her last way of showing her love. Valentine’s Day had been a big deal when I was a child, with heartshaped cookies and red food dye in almost everything. She would have loved the symbolism.