Does not everybody have the right to see things her (or his) way? Maybe Thomas tried to set a poetic vision against the reality he had seen, and thus was able to live with it. Others have other ways of coping.
While my grandmother was dying in her 86th year, she lay unconscious, breathing heavily and unevenly, and I was sitting next to her, suffering from her suffering, and trying to find the courage to take a pillow and end it all. Of course I didn't, for, alongside the legitimate wish not to see our loved ones suffer, we have, I believe, an ingrained respect for life even in extremes (or most of us have ...).
There was a nurse there who believed that the dying, in their last unconscious days, re-lived their lives, and she said to me when my grandmother was dead: "She must have had a good life. She was very quiet those last few days. Not like some I've seen." I loved her for that, and think it's a comforting belief - even for an unbeliever like me. - Susanne