46

Death is common to all living beings. Death is an ineluctable, inevitable unknown that puts an end to one’s life. However, nobody knows the way they will die. This uncertainty is associated with images of death: how does one die? In order to answer this question, the gaze is directed onto the dying person. Sometimes, death takes some time, and in those cases the last moments of someone’s life appear more vivid, more intense. People who choose to experience the end of their life at home need their relatives in particular. Through the stories of three women who passed away at home and through twelve interviews with relatives present during their last moments, we examine agony, a forgotten aspect of life. The words of the relatives paint this moment of suffering and of knowledge as vivid, tough, intense, sometimes intolerable. The dying person, author of the death event, remains at the center of the relatives’ and the medical staff’s concerns. He/she teaches them about this ignored time, which is still part of life.