I would never have started re-reading this book if I had remembered that this was in it:
She could... never forget that gray, sterile, concrete-walled intensive care waiting room where she had spent all those weeks, frightened and confused, just like the rest of the ones waiting there; knowing that their loved one was lying just down the hall in a cold, sunless room, waiting to die.
Here they were, perfect strangers, in this small space, sharing what was probably the most intimate and painful moment of their lives, not knowing how to act or what to say. There were no rules of etiquette. Nobody had prepared them for this. Poor people, terrified like herself, trying to be brave, chatting on about their everyday lives, completely in shock, pretending everything was all right.
Everyday they waited together, knowing the moment would come, that awful moment when they would be called upon to make "the decision" whether or not to turn the machines off.
It's for the best.
They'll be much better off.
It's what they would want.
The doctor says they're already gone.
This is only a technicality.
A technicality?
All those calm, adult discussions. When all she really wanted to do was scream for her momma, her sweet momma, the one person in the world who loved her better than anyone ever would or ever could.
She felt as if she were in a dream and listened carefully to what [the doctor] said. He made it seem so simple and so natural. "No point in prolonging it..."
He made perfect sense. She got up like a zombie and went home.
She thought she was ready to accept it, to let her go.
But then, nobody was ever really ready to turn off their mother's machine, no matter what they thought; to turn off the light of their childhood and walk away, just as if they were turning out a light and leaving a room.
-From "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe"
