Sentence:  The night after reading her letter about her surgeon uncle - it must have been late in September - I had a vision of myself returned in ragged uniform from The Front , nearly <WSD>dying</WSD> , my head bandaged and bloody , and Jessica bending over me , the power of her love bringing me back to life . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  pass from physical life and lose all bodily attributes and functions necessary to sustain life