I go in quietly and sit down at her bedside as she sleeps. By spending time with the dying, I have learned to keep silent vigil with those who are asleep, or in a coma, and I have discovered the pleasure of just being there, not doing anything, just being a presence, alert, attentive, like a mother watching over her sleeping baby.

— Marie de Hennezel, Intimate Death by Marie de Hennezel, Carol Brown Janeway, translator