Her voice is unsteady. “It goes up and down like a ping-pong ball, I guess I’d say”, she says. She wants to know how I am, and I carefully steer the conversation away from the topic. I want to know how she’s doing, all things considered…. All things considered. For over two years now, I and my family have been sitting on the most discomforting chair there is. Over two years ago, I wrote that my mother is dying. She had expected it. We had all expected it. And we sat together, figuratively speaking, as a family, and we waited, as she waited. Only, the day hasn’t come yet. The medication has gotten stronger. Morphine and methadone were prescribed to keep the pain manageable. They have prolonged everything, necessary as they are for her. Long, managed suffering is preferable to sheer agony of unknown duration. (Isn’t it?) So we have waited, worried, wondered when. We continue to do so.

My Mother

It has been over two years. I know the day will come. It will be a relief for her, most of all. But we all will finally let go that breath that we have held for so long, now. She breathed her life into us, and we will exhale when hers is done. And then we will inhale again, and it will hurt to take that breath.

The pictures you see here were taken in front of my childhood home. My mom was a stay-at-home mom for most of my early years. She kept a clean house. She watched the Lawrence Welk Show and loved the Lemon Sisters and Time Magazine. She played the piano as best as she could and sang to her heart’s content. She was old school. She grew up in the Great Depression era and her husband, my father, whom she met and fell in love with when she was still a teenager, was a Navy man.

My childhood home was their longest place of residence. It was a nice place. Roomy and upper middle-class, with a two car garage. It had a big backyard with a tall oak tree in its south end, whose shade fell on nearly a third the yard’s expanse. At the north end of the yard there were rose bushes. My mother spent a lot of time with those rose bushes, pruning and tending them in her thick gardening gloves, a scarf, and a big straw hat, one of our dogs we had over the years, running around the yard chasing birds and butterflies or sleeping in the shade. She would bring in roses, also lemons and avocados from our trees, and, rarely, sometimes apricots. And for the most part, these were the highlights of her individual, personal, “alone time” life. She took great pleasure in her time in the yard, even as she continued to struggle at being a good mother and spouse in a household that was, even during the best of times, a difficult one to manage and bear. It took me many years to appreciate just what she went through while I was growing up.

When I was still a kid, my mom went back to school. She took courses at the local community college and became a Licensed Vocational Nurse. She did so against the wishes of my father and my own childish complaints. In the end, she went to work taking care of terminally ill children. I won’t here delve into the psychology of her choices. It’s not my place to do so. But I can say that I admire her for what she put herself through even as I feel sad that she felt driven to such a painful place. She would come home sometimes with heartbreak written across her face, and in her home there was more waiting.

Now, these many years later, my father is taking care of her, 24/7, with meager hospice aid. She is bedridden, forbidden to put any weight on the leg she recently broke simply by moving the wrong way. There are only two ways she will be leaving her home, now. She told me again this morning when I called that she thinks it’s almost time, this time. My hope is that I get to see her again one more time, but I am not so selfish as to hope that she will stay with us any longer than she must. It would be better for her to sleep that final sleep and suffer no more than hang on for others’ sake.

My Mother and I by the trusty VW Bug I'd one day own.

Over and over, she told me she loves me. Today on the phone, and any time I’ve ever spoken to her. “I’ll always love you. No matter what.” That is what she’s always said. And so I shall always love her. Whatever we’ve been through in our lives, no matter how difficult, she’s been my mom. We forgave each other for our faults and failings a long time ago, now. Now there is nothing left but moving toward the final passage, the final parting. “I hope you’re having a happy Mothers Day, Mom. I love you”, I said. Her voice was fading in and out, but she said, “Oh, honey, thank you. I am. I’m so glad you called”. That’s my mom. I’m so glad I got at least one more Mothers Day to wish her happiness.