*this was written many days ago and newer posts have been made since...you may find them to the left in the sidebar...*
Just three weeks ago, we were steeping ourselves in the gorgeous Autumn, the days full of their usual beauty and hardship...
...encouraging Mom to eat while we sat in the sun in her pretty sitting room...
...finding new thrift store outfits to work with her always declining abilities...
...getting
Mom out in the earthy world she loved during the generous portion of
warm days we were given, and all the while feeling all the usual
frustration and gratitude and limitation and sweetness. Tho' we had
begun to take new sorts of steps...being accepted into Hospice (for the
late-stage Alz., not end-of-life), filling out paperwork for handicapped
parking as Mom's walking was getting more difficult for her, as was to
be expected. But life was going on its usual way.
Just
two weeks ago, Mom fell down in her cosy room, as she did her usual
puttering around after a nap. There was nothing to trip her, she was
simply walking from her closet with her new pair of shoes, when I heard
the dreadful thump from the kitchen.
So
began a week that is a blur of pain and confusion for Mom, worry and
sorrow for the rest of us, emergency room and hip surgery, days camping
out in her hospital room, so many prognoses and questions and finally
being able to go home Thursday afternoon, some ten days ago.
Just a week ago, Mom was tucked up in bed, eating her own supper, watching her favorite movies...kept somewhat comfortable and comforted with medicines and her own things about her. I was taking moments out to stock up on all of the things we might need for the long weeks of nursing ahead. It was daunting, but we were stepping out on that journey, and gathering our provisions for it...
...making a big batch of tapioca pudding, just as my mom would do when I was a child, filling new shelves with ample bedding and all of the strange supplies that came with the home health agency and hospice help, arranging the room for all that would now take place within its walls, and all the while reassuring, comforting, loving this dear woman...
Then just five days ago, Mom stopped eating...and drinking...and her anxiety and distress grew much larger than they had been. There was no more consolation to be found in our preparations, and very little we could find for Mom except in stronger medications...
And just two days ago, things shifted again and a peace came down...to my mom, to her room, in our home, in our hearts. She is sleeping, off the medications, breathing easily for now, accepting our ministrations with little fear or pain.
Yesterday and today, the house has been blessedly free of all those good people who are helping us through this....just Douglas and me...lighting candles, making playlists of Mom's favorite music to play in her room when we tend her, communicating with all who have loved her over the years, making candles as we run low, eating the tapioca pudding for breakfast with our toast, creating an Erik Satie station on Pandora to listen to as we do the laundry and wash the dishes, and glance out the window for quick views of the beautiful, leaf-speckled, bare-limbed, blackbird-dotted world outside.
We are happy to stay inside mostly....feeling the sacredness of this time. So grateful that our long-held wish that Mom be here at home at the end of her life seems to be granted to us...that she is out of suffering, for always, we hope....that we are here to love her and remember how she loved us...that she is still under our wing.
I am typing this as I sit on the sofa in her bedroom and sun sinks and throws its glow through her western windows...she is sleeping peacefully, her hand on the little white dog that I brought with us to the hospital...there are flowers and a pitcher of rosemary nearby and the painting of her own wondrous mother overlooking her bed. All is calm. May it remain so.
I will keep you posted as we move through what we believe to be the last days and hours.
xo
