Family Takes Steps Forward After Tusan-Dalton's Kayaking Death

After Davis resident Joyce Tusan-Dalton died in a two weeks ago, her daughter’s close friend Christy Sillman had to speak the most difficult words she ever had to say:

“I’m so sorry, but your mom is about to die. We have two paths that ultimately end at the same spot. We either let them continue ‘coding’ her until they feel it’s time to stop, which will be in the next 20 minutes or so, and she would pass in a room full of doctors and nurses still working on her, or, we can go in there as a family, be there when they shut off the machines, surround your Mom and see her into the light with our love. It’s your choice. I want you both to feel like everything was done to save your Mom, but they really have done everything to try to save her, and now I think we have the opportunity to make her death as beautiful as possible.”

Even more difficult than saying those words was the process of writing them out afterward. Tusan-Dalton’s daughter is pregnant, and working to understand the loss as she prepares to bring new life into the world.

Sillman documents her feelings eloquently in this column on iPinion.

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