July 1971

What is it that promotes the will to live? Is it comfort? Security? Good food? Friends? A stable home? Strong relationships? Connections? Feeling appreciated? Success? having a purpose? Taking care of a person or pet?

Or is it intrinsic: something within, a life force?

By the same token, what makes us loose the will to live? Is it the opposite of all of the above or is it knowing when to bow out and gracefully exit?

I’ve wondered about all of this in regard to myself. How is it going to end? This is a tough topic that is hard to think about, let alone accept. It is a topic that makes us dramatically uncomfortable, we squrim at the thought of an ending despite the sometimes silliness of the mundane, the ridiculousness of the quotidian: the cooking, the working, the laundry, the drama, the buying stuff, the need for things: It will all come to a halt. And, the older we are, like my mother, the closer our noses press against the glass of what is next. It must be terrifying to be so elderly and to know that at any moment it all just goes black.

Terrifying.

Or maybe comforting.

What has happened in the last week has been remarkable.

On a cruise in the Gulf

• An aide, a dear woman with a heart of gold went above and beyond to bring comfort, caring and security to my mother.

• Several people at the rehab center steered me in the right direction, a young physician spent several long sessions on the phone with me. She is recommending Hospice care.

• I spoke to enough people to get the in on how to get my mother out of her lousy HMO, Humana, and onto straight Medicare so she could use her never tapped Blue Cross/Blue Shield policy: I never thought it was possible after all the doors slamming in my face, but I found the back door and it opened.

And that, all that, promotes the will to live. But there’s more.

As of now my mother will be going home on Friday after a doctor’s appointment. She’s looking forward to it. I think she will no longer see all the flaws she complained about at her assisted living residence. It’s not perfect but it is certainly better than where she has been this month. It might even be perceived as a haven. Her place.

Here’s a flashback: I am about eight years old and playing in Stuyvesant Town at our playground, “playground 5.” I could be bouncing my pink Spalding ball or dirtying my knees on the skully court, or playing jump rope.  A, my name is Alice … and who appears, who has come up the large flat stairs that lead to the  “main” entrance of our building?

My mother.

She is a distance away separated by playground and grass and the low chain fences that define reality.

She is walking briskly in her high heels, wearing a swing coat or maybe her Persian lamb with the mink tie collar. She doesn’t see me, I am too far and she is very much in herself as she speeds in her pumps to the entrance of 653 East 14th Street.

She is coming home from uptown; she just had her hair done. It is light auburn and there are two wings covering her ears. This is 1950’s elegance: she has just been made gorgeous by Eddie Senz.  I can see she feels good, proud. She isn’t five feet tall but her head is held high and her heels elevate her into the clouds.

It is as though we aren’t related. She is my mother and I don’t know if I should feel awe or neglect.

This evening as my mother ate her meal at around 5 o’clock, I called the aide. Told her about the upcoming hospice evaluation the next day, discussed the pending release and possible plans. My mother had a message: “tell Susan to to call and make me a hair appointment for when I get back.”

Maybe the will to live is all about … hair.

[This series is linked: see “continued here.” Also, below the line there will be links for the previous post and the next.]

continued here

The series starts here