Anyone, Eliza is thinking, who describes dying as ‘slipping away’ or ‘peaceful’ has never witnessed it happen. Death is violent, death is a struggle. The body clings to life, as ivy to a wall, and will not easily let go, will not surrender its grip without a fight.

I feel like a, perhaps, niche microtrope that I greatly value in a book is when there are evocative descriptions of death and dying, specifically as it pertains to the grief process or the experience of the living loved one’s bearing witness to it. It’s going to be different every time; haunting, bittersweet, wrenching, melancholic, hopeful, etc. This quote, I would say, falls more so in the ‘wrenching’ category, but it might be one of my favorite descriptions I’ve stumbled across in a book thus far likely because of just how heartbreaking it is.

I think I always have appreciated it, to some degree, since Death is such a taboo topic for western societies so candid conversation around it always piques my interest, but I appreciate it on a much deeper level after having witnessed loved ones dying and becoming a person who grieves. It’s a club that no one wants to be in, but most everyone will find themselves in it one day. You walk around with this secret, that you didn’t ask for, and that no one can possibly understand what it takes from you to hold until they have to hold it too.

As much as I love reading beautifully poetic descriptions of how death is a door or like being carried into the next room, I think it’s so important to have this terribly profound side of it described as well. Yes, for the one dying, it can feel peaceful. The body instinctively knows how to die, and it does everything it can to make it easier on the person making that passage. But for those bearing witness to it, there is no surge of endorphins to take away the pain, there isn’t the deep pull of sleep. It does look violent and can be uncomprehendingly jarring to see someone you love reduced to the animal of their body.

Grieving can be so, so isolating. But then there are these lightning moments—like me stumbling across this quote, like Shakespeare and Agnes watching people reflect their grief back to them show after show—where, even if for just a moment, you feel not so alone in it. Where, bittersweetly, you think, Ah. So you understand too, then.