We buried my grandmother this weekend

My wife and I found out on Thursday morning that my grandmother had died at the age of 81. She had spent the last few years of her life in a nursing home, in a progressively incoherent state of mind.

We drove in for the funeral on Friday and returned Saturday afternoon. The kids stayed with P's mom.

When I went to visit my grandmother a few years ago, she had no idea who I was but talked at length about a series of events that seemed to be about half fantasy and half recollection. These events included moonlight visits from a friendly clown at her window.

Fortunately, as her dementia progressed, she did not suffer from frightening hallucinations, as is sometimes the case. She just kind of got lost in a strange, benign dream world.

I last saw her the weekend of new year's day. She hadn't been conscious for some time and was on oxygen as part of the treatment for the bout of pneumonia that eventually killed her.

My grandparents had saved a great deal of money for retirement, and a few years of nursing care has wiped it out entirely. My grandfather is blind, diabetic, wheelchair-bound and lives in the same nursing home where my grandmother lived. He is now awaiting a specialist's opinion regarding an apparent circulatory blockage in his leg. It is possible that they will have to amputate. If this is indeed the case, the resulting increase in his level of depression will likely do him in.

We are in strange times. We have the technology to keep a person's body alive for a great length of time, though we cannot often halt the degeneration of a mind.

I fear more the possibility that I will have to linger in some incoherent state for years than I do the certainty of death. At the same time, I also fear the possible implications of a state-sponsored euthanasia program.

Where are we headed?