We went to see her, one last time, even though we knew she was asleep much of the time and might not even wake up to notice our presence.

It felt oddly intimate to visit someone who is asleep.

She was there, and yet it was almost not her any more. She has always been alive and warm-hearted and vivacious, and this person here is so emphatically not, so how can it be her? This person was closer to being dead than to being her.

When we thought she had months to live, it was only weeks. When we thought it was days, it was just hours.

She died a few hours after we left. It does not seem real.