Summary

Danticat begins this essay by recounting the death of her Aunt Rezia. Rezia suffered a stroke, lay in a coma for almost two weeks, and then died. Danticat tries to imagine a deathbed scene for her aunt, saying deathbed scenes are so common in literature and art. Danticat cannot think of a scene, and instead, begins to analyze a deathbed scene from Toni Morrison’s novel, Sula. When examining the scene, Danticat decides that in the novel, death is “triumphant,” “The threshold of whatever might come next” (25).

Danticat then muses on the death of her mother, saying “it is a matter of both deep curiosity and concern as to when [our dying loved ones] will finally accept they’re dying” (26). She asserts that when watching someone die, you must “feel the encroaching brush of death upon yourself,” and realize your own mortality (27). Danticat...