“we should all be as strong and beautiful as the tree outside my window”

Yesterday was my mother’s ninety-fifth birthday; the sickliest child grew up and outlived three siblings. I still find it amazing. My mother always believed in natural medicine and read extensively about homeopathy and natural cures. She subscribes to several doctors’ newsletters. She would always ask if I took my CoQ10. I do. Now she is surrounded by hospice nurses who do not know what CoQ10 is.

She had a quiet day but perked up in the latter part of the afternoon in time for a happy birthday family phone call. She wanted to talk but was unable to; the pneumonia is choking her and she has difficulty speaking for more than a minute. I had the call on speakerphone, and when my son heard his grandmother gasping and choking he was horrified. This is what I have been dealing with for over a month: horror.

I called my mother this morning and one of the nurses answered the phone and my mother asked for it. I was anxious to hear what she wanted to tell me–almost apprehensive; she now speaks in a voice that is barely recognizable. She spends so much energy to stop coughing and to enunciate that her voice is pinched and alien. It is coming from a person who is losing weight daily. But what she wanted to say was this: She was watching an old western, a love story, the nurses and staff are wonderful and help her forget that she is ill, the sun is shining brightly into the apartment, the tree outside looks strong and beautiful and we should all be like that tree. This was poignant: it was almost childlike and yet almost Buddhist. The Zen of the here and now, the day, the light, the tree, strength. Basic stuff, basic realizations are sometimes the wisest.

I was able to get away on Friday (see previous posts) and today. It did me good to get away from the phone and the fear of its ring. I sat through a three hour opera and was able to follow along and enjoy. I felt … almost peaceful.

Then I got an email that had a bill attached from the home care agency for over four thousand dollars and I began to get that same sick feeling in my gut that I have been fighting for months: what if the funds drain, what will we do?She can’t be moved, she’ll die in a Florida nursing home without private help, she’ll lose her apartment … I got a bad case of the what-if’s. But I am going to remember what my mother said: we should all be as strong and beautiful as the tree outside her window.

I’ll try.

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continued here

The series starts here