Samantha was so weak as she lay dying in the hospital that it was a monumental effort to keep her eyes closed.  It was easier to stare listlessly at the fern in her window as her lungs gurgled.  Her eyesight was shot, but she could still make out the shadows the windowpane cast on the fern in her room.  Sometimes she thought them similar to a hand reaching out to her – the hand of death slowly extending his fingers toward her failing body.  Sometimes they resembled a spider’s web she imagined entangling her body and mind, inhibiting movement and thought.  On the day Samantha died, a nurse held a tablet so her family could say goodbye.  Delirious, Samantha had mumbled, “The fingers are so thin.  Why is it so hard to avoid them when there are so many patches of light in between?”  It was a debate among her family later whether she’d said “light” or “life”.