Use swabs to wet her mouth, the nurse told me. Hold her hand.
護士告訴我用棉籤蘸水溼潤她的嘴脣，舉起她的手。
Her senses are dimming, but hearing will linger. Tell her you love her.
她的意識逐漸消退，但是還能夠聽見你的聲音。快告訴她你愛她。
She died on Father's Day. I had bought Dad a bottle of cognac,
母親在父親節這一天去世的。我給父親帶來一瓶白蘭地，
which we were drinking when we heard her breathing stop.
當聽到她停止呼吸的時候，我們喝了杯酒。
Serious illness is a journey to a foreign country.
經歷一場嚴重的疾病就像經歷一場去陌生國度的旅行。
You do not speak the language, the people are strangers,
你不會說當地的語言，身邊都是陌生人，
and you cannot know how you will behave until you arrive.
你不知道做什麼直到你到達目的.地。
But inner strength, too, is unpredictable.
而內在的力量也是不可預測的。
For after the night of Mom's death when I thought I could not go on, we went on.
母親去世的那晚，悲痛讓我不能自已，以為要沉溺於這樣的情緒很久，但是後來還是恢復了。
That could not have happened without hospice.
這得益於臨終關懷組織。
The hospice nurse had made her comfortable; the aide had set her hair.
護士梳理好母親的頭髮，讓她安詳地離開人世。
Deaths like my mothers prove that hospice can make death not just an ending but a kind of culmination.
我母親的去世讓我意識到臨終關懷讓死亡變成人生的高潮而不是終點。
If you control symptoms, if you provide support to patients and families,
如果你能讓病情得到控制，如果你為病人及其家屬提供幫助，
you can see great growth at the end of life.
當生命逝去時，你會感受到生命得到了昇華。
There are many alternatives to suicide even at the end of life.
在生命最後關頭有很多方式可以代替自殺。
Hospice offers the hope that death, while inevitable, need not be impersonal, need not be unbearable.
臨終關懷給人帶來希望，死亡是不可避免的，是主觀的，也是可以承受的。
The argument over assisted suicide may have helped Americans recognize the ways in which medicine,
輔助自殺的爭論可能會幫助美國人意識到藥物的作用，
so good at so many things, fails the dying.
它對很多事情都是有利的，
But it also prevents us from meeting the real challenge of providing decent end-of-life care.
但是它讓死亡失去了意義。它也無法讓人體會到逝者在臨終前享有的溫暖而體面的照顧。