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Eve Drewelowe's journals, volumes II-III, 1950s
Page 146
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following Saturday it seemed of small consequence that I should not have listened to it. In fact any sound, dissonant or otherwise, would have been disturbing at that time. The only other thing I remember as saying, for I talked but little when coming out from under the anesthesia was a philosophy-sizing in a more serious vein. "It is so hard; so very hard to die! It is so difficult to live, and too hard to die. Since it is beyond our jurisdiction to be born; and to die is such a tremendous struggle, one should do everything one can to avoid the brinks - this kind of a predicament where the will to do might carry me over." I acutely felt that I had skirted the great beyond, that I had stared in the face of death but had been snatched back. And yet I felt incongruously enough that dying was a particularly difficult and trying task; that it was immeasurably impossible and loathsome. Living was just too much; yet dying was out of the question. So there I was suspended between the two, not daring to die; too hardened to live. It was true, living was a gigantic task, a multitudinous affair that required great fortitude. My feelings of the moment are never properly be recorded. Living then, however, was too completely heavy, too far beyond my strength, my human endurance. It was just something to be ticked away; something to be got overwith and behind; through; done; relegated with oblivion to the past. Oh! then for the surcease of all earthly use. Oh! for rest; for peace and a sweet oblivion; a ceasing of the conflicts; the seesaw struggle; the stress and strain of having to go on. These first few days were largely a matter of hanging on - a mere matter of slowing the seconds; the minutes behind me; pushing time away from me. It was merely a matter of ticking away the time into the nowhere. That first night - I know - I could never have managed it without the night nurse. I was terrified at the thought of being alone - afraid. That first
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following Saturday it seemed of small consequence that I should not have listened to it. In fact any sound, dissonant or otherwise, would have been disturbing at that time. The only other thing I remember as saying, for I talked but little when coming out from under the anesthesia was a philosophy-sizing in a more serious vein. "It is so hard; so very hard to die! It is so difficult to live, and too hard to die. Since it is beyond our jurisdiction to be born; and to die is such a tremendous struggle, one should do everything one can to avoid the brinks - this kind of a predicament where the will to do might carry me over." I acutely felt that I had skirted the great beyond, that I had stared in the face of death but had been snatched back. And yet I felt incongruously enough that dying was a particularly difficult and trying task; that it was immeasurably impossible and loathsome. Living was just too much; yet dying was out of the question. So there I was suspended between the two, not daring to die; too hardened to live. It was true, living was a gigantic task, a multitudinous affair that required great fortitude. My feelings of the moment are never properly be recorded. Living then, however, was too completely heavy, too far beyond my strength, my human endurance. It was just something to be ticked away; something to be got overwith and behind; through; done; relegated with oblivion to the past. Oh! then for the surcease of all earthly use. Oh! for rest; for peace and a sweet oblivion; a ceasing of the conflicts; the seesaw struggle; the stress and strain of having to go on. These first few days were largely a matter of hanging on - a mere matter of slowing the seconds; the minutes behind me; pushing time away from me. It was merely a matter of ticking away the time into the nowhere. That first night - I know - I could never have managed it without the night nurse. I was terrified at the thought of being alone - afraid. That first
Iowa Women’s Lives: Letters and Diaries
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