One of the hospice nurses reluctantly informed me that the phlegmy noise that accompanied each one of his exhales actually had a name, albeit a colloquial one: the “death rattle.” I thought she was kidding. Google confirmed to me that she was not. It described the terminal secretions like saliva that accumulated in a dying individual’s throat and upper chest. What an ugly, horrible, insensitive, crass label to attach to something so heartbreaking. Kit would’ve loved it.
