I cannot believe that it is December again. I am not ready for another holiday season and yet, before I know it, it will be over. I feel like if I blink it will be Spring. It speaks to the importance I MUST place on each moment. I have allowed the moments to slip by. How else can I explain this year? The days...often filled with frustration, stress, worry and exhaustion have raced by. Wasn't it Easter just yesterday? Wasn't I celebrating the arrival of 2017 a moment ago?
Ah, sadly, my mother is slipping away all too quickly. How do I slow the days down? How do I hold her last moments (so infrequent) of lucid thought? I looked back to a year ago. I wrote about the hectic days, the craziness that precedes Christmas. At that time my mother was receiving hospice care. We thought that she was experiencing her last days. Suddenly, she bounced back -- a full recovery! It was a Christmas miracle of sorts. I worried that at any moment she could take a turn for the worse and lapse back into the comatose state she was in that prompted a call to hospice in the first place. But days and weeks turned into months. My productivity slackened as I spent more time with her, watching, caring, administering, but mostly just sitting. Her interest in everything had waned. Her communication was minimized and her comprehension was severely limited. So why didn't the days drag? Why is it that the less I did the faster the days seemed to fly by? Isn't that counter-intuitive?
I have gone over and over this past year's events; the conversations with friends, the dinners with family members, the laughter and good times, the deep discussions, and playful moments with my spouse. I thought about the entertaining we did, the tea parties, the small dinner parties, the funny moments with Mom and the not-so-funny moments that Alzheimer's brings as well. None of it...NONE of it was more than a moment ago, I tell you. What a nasty trick the Universe plays on us. The older we get and the less time we have, the less time it takes to get there. I am suddenly reminded of the poem by Dylan Thomas which made no sense to me when I was a young girl studying famous poets. The lines resonate with me now: 'Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.' Well, I am raging indeed! I am raging for my mother who cannot speak to it herself. I am raging for myself as I witness the limited time ticking away. I am raging for all of those people who helplessly witness lost time with loved ones and wish that they could harness the minutes to hold them for just a while longer.
Tonight as I go to sleep I will focus on the minutes. I will treasure each second, each breath with a new-found appreciation. And tomorrow, as I awaken to a new day, I will promise myself to enjoy the time that I sit with my mother doing absolutely nothing but sharing space and air together. She may not think about it, nor remember it, but I will do so for both of us. I will look at her gnarled arthritic hands, her face lined with years of expression, from love, disapproval, smiles and frowns, joy and sorrow. I will look at her silky white hair lying limp and thin on her pink scalp. I will apply lotion to her wrinkled skin hanging with uncertain direction off of delicate bones. I will marvel that a person of 98 years is still able to be as mobile, as agile while she lifts her legs to assist me in putting on her socks. Her questions, her comments, as limited as they may be will register in my brain and store in my memory. "Who am I?" I will ask her. She will answer one of her many ways. "Are you my neighbor? Are you my mother? Are you my friend?" I will smile. "Yes, I am," I will agree to whatever she chooses to define me. I will take it in, all of it, because it will be a day from now or a year from now that I will look back and rage against the diminishing moments..."Where did the time go?"
Wrapping you in a huge hug.
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