They face their deaths alone. Their Alzheimer demented brain may be a blessing. These are tough time for such people. Anyone who faces death today and is not in agony is just not in touch with reality. It is a great irony that as modern medicine gets better at keeping us alive, it makes dying harder - harder to do and harder on everyone around.
Death seems even more than ever like a dead-end preceded by an extremely complex maze.
When we were in England two summers ago, we learned that mazes are constructed with many turns and curves and virtually no straight lines because witches can't turn corners. Witches have to fly in straight lines. We may avoid witches by taking a circuitous path to death, but we do not escape a devilish struggle. This is not an easy thing for us contemporary Americans to take. We are determined to avoid death at any cost.