I didn't know him well.

But I am so thankful I knew him at all.  He was in his late seventies and had recently been told he had to have dialysis for kidney failure.  He did go to dialysis for a short time but decided he couldn't live that way.  He wanted to leave the nursing home he was in and go home to die. 

And so he did.  I was there shortly after he got home that first day.  He was sitting in a wheelchair looking out his front window.  Outside the window was a wonderful lake view.  His home was steps from the shore.  It was a tiny home but with a view like that, no one noticed the house anyway.

I sat next to him and noticed that on the table in front of him was a drink he was sipping on.  It was a beer.  I thought then and there, this is why I love being a hospice nurse.  He was doing what he wanted and I couldn't have been happier for him.

The next day he was in bed.  It was a hospital bed in the living room so he could look out the windows all the time.  He never got out of that bed again.  Never had another beer.  Three weeks after he came home, he quietly died in the early morning hours.

Before he died, his sister in law told me that he wanted to be cremated.  Then he would be tossed in the lake.  He had put his wife's ashes in the lake a few years earlier.  It wasn't legal but what can you do, as his nurse I simply nod my head and secretly wish I have such a romantic ending in my life one day. 

He lived in a beautiful place.  I was honored to be there with him even though the time was short.  For some reason, I don't think I will forget him.  Looking out the window, drinking a beer.  It's a wonderful life.  Not a bad death either.