Though we aren't particularly close, I am very close to my aunt and she is very close to her father, and now that I am home around my hometown we have been spending alot of time at the hospital with her dad.

He came down with a nasty infection in the chest not long ago, and on top of that he has i think its called polymyalgia and parkinsons. Was better for a couple of days but has gone right back to spiking a very high fever and being very out of it, just not attached to reality at all.

He is in his eighties, eighty three i think and has grown so frail. It is very hard to comfort him as he does not often know who we are. Sometimes however he is quite funny - the other day his son was feeding him dinner and he said out of the blue " you look like (my sons name)" and his son said "you look like (dad's name too" and i guess he had a good laugh over that.

We have thought about bringing his little dog up to the hospital for a visit but are scared it might make him more lonely for home if he has to miss her too, considering he is not thinking about her right now.

The sad part in this, is he could go any day. And really, my aunt and I have talked about it maybe being better that he does go soon, if for no reason other than the fact that he won't have to get better just to get ill again or have to go to a home where he would be miserable - him and his wife still live in their own home.

On top of all this, my great aunt has been fighting cancer for almost ten years now and this is just wearing her out completely. I fear that it might end up sending her into a bad bout of illness too, though shes already proven that shes pretty darn strong.

Is it wrong to think it might be better for someone to go now, than to pray for them to hang on and get better? Considering it is not thought that he will ever entirely come back to reality...