1:38 p.m. - 2010-07-27
The Slow Decline
Yesterday, the world as I knew it ended. My mother was put on hospice care. She is a container of pain. Languishing on the bed, calling for her own mother. She has moments of lucidity. She gave her grandson, my son, a blessing yesterday. She told him he is a great person and that she feels very close to him. She told him that he is handsome. He held her hand. She looked in his eyes. It is so mysterious, this dark process. One minute I am sure she is gone. I am crying on the edge of her bed. The next, she sudddenly revives, saying in her offhand fashion, "Where has the day gone?" I don't know her. I am in awe of her. She totters on the precipace of eternity. She is helpless, fragile, totally dependent. Still, she clings to her Henny Youngman repetoire. She holds court. I am praying that the Lord kisses her gently home. That she does not need to play out this hand of Morphine and other dark tools of the hospice trade. I am praying that the Lord whisks her away from the hands of strangers to abide forever in the kingdom prepared for her from the foundation of the world. I am praying that she slips across when no one is watching. Even her.
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