The sadness of this took my breath away...

"You live in dread for the last job of the morning though, it is fairly common to have a 'suspended' call as one half of an elderly couple wakes up to find that their partner has died in their sleep. Not normally a good end to a shift."

While almost everyone wishes to die quietly in their sleep (me included) I'd never given much thought about how one leaves a partner this way. It is never easy to lose someone, even to a natural and painless death. However, even unexpected death tends to come to us (the survivors) when we are walking around and in some way ready to deal with it. I cannot imagine what it must be like to go sleep at night beside the person whom you love, the person with whom you have built a life, and wake up beside a cold, empty shell. I'm never at my best while waking up, especially in the morning. I think such a thing would devestate me completely.