A Very Easy Death

“I had grown fond of this misfortune.”

Simone watches her mother suffer despite their cold history. It made me realize pity is often stronger than love. You can hate someone and still feel broken by their pain.

“There is no such thing as a natural death.”

Watching her mother wither away made Beauvoir feel like a child again. She realized our parents are just vulnerable people we happened to meet first.

The hospital routine turns a dying woman into a project for the doctors. They focus on the pulse while the person inside is disappearing.

“She had never done anything for herself.”

Maman lived her whole life for others and for her faith. Only at the very end did she finally start caring about her own physical desires.