Today is my mother's 91st birthday.
    It is one of the hottest days of the year...following yesterday, which was also a hot day. By "hot" I mean that the temperature is in the 90's and the dew point is 45°, thus, although I am running the evaporative cooler at the back of the house because it seems somewhat drier "up here" (some hundreds of feet above the actual city of Prescott), it's only mildly effective. After studying the Local on the 8's several times, yesterday, we both decided it would be better to put off the cooking that her preferred birthday dinner would entail until Sunday, at least, when it's supposed to drop into the high 80's or possibly Monday, when the temperature should be closer to the mid to low 80's. Both days promise rain but, at that temperature, using the oven to bake a home made beef pot pie and the stove top to cook parts of the home made parfait dessert (Oriental Orange Snow) will not seem suffocating, or so we're thinking. In the meantime, this has more or less been a "birthday week" for my mother. I've been teasing her about her birthday a lot, trying to coax her to guess the gifts I've gotten her, she's been receiving flowers since the 30th (yet another bright yellow bouquet, perfectly worked to sit in her favorite yellow vase, just arrived) and each evening we've eaten food she loves and I've seen to it that each dinner includes dessert, her favorite part of dinner.
    I asked her yesterday, twice, after reminding her that today is her birthday, how old she felt. When she first awoke she said, "About 150." Later in the day, more serious, she said, "Oh, I would guess pretty old. Late 70's, early 80's..."
    When I reminded her that she'd be 91 today, once again, as usual, she said, astonished, "Oh no! I'm sure you're wrong about that!" So, we subtracted her birth year from the current year ("2008" surprised her, too), and she said, "Well, I think you're hedging!"
    I'm not feeling sentimental about this probably being her last birthday. I keep waiting for that to kick in and it just hasn't. I've been thinking ahead to this coming fall/winter holiday season, too, which, if she makes it there, will probably also be her last, and I just can't get excited or sorrowful about it. The more I think about it, though, the more I think it is probably best that I am incapable of making a special big deal about these "last" celebrations of ours. They are, indeed, wonderful landmarks. But, you know, I'm just surprised, pleased and satisfied that she's broken 90. And, you know, I think the best way to live life is to live it as though one will never die or one might die within the next few moments, both strategies of which are essentially the same.
    I've also been considering, lately, how it goes with most online caregiver journalists. Of the few of whom I am aware, three have lost their care recipient parents. Two haven't posted since their parents' deaths. One has, briefly, in memory. Thus, I wonder how much writing I'll be doing here after my mother's death. I expect I'll probably continue for awhile, not just in memory of my mother but as a way of sorting through the period of my life that will have just ended. Since I've been doing what is pretty much "the unthinkable" and often "the undoable", which involves seeing to it that there is as little detectable difference between Mom's life and mine as possible for the last 11 years (when 24/7 caregiving began and I stopped working outside the home), I imagine I will be moved to process a lot of the last 14+ (possibly 15 by the time my mother dies) years immediately after her death and trying to make enough sense of everything to continue my life in a reasonable manner. I assume that I'll be reporting on this processing online.
    It is irritating for me to try to take into account, as "The Literature" admonishes, some sort of preparation for my life after my mother's death. I agree that doing this is "wise" and I'm not immune to fits of fear about how my life will unfold "afterwards" but, for me, it seems disingenuous to attempt to prepare for a part of my life that remains ambiguous, at best. I haven't a clue, for instance, how I will feel when Mom and I are done, here. I know, from experience, that for me to attempt to anticipate how I might feel is pure folly.
    So, truthfully, despite the variety of labels that have been placed on our life, recently, "lung cancer", "dying", "hospice", "end of life", I remain astonished that none of these has changed our lived-together life, nor have they changed my feelings about it, and us. The recent periods of desperation, the periods of cruising (one of which we're in, right now) are all familiar to me. Nothing has changed. Nothing, I suspect, will change until my mother makes her Final Change. And then, well, que sera sera.
    I know, I know, that's a fool's refrain, which is probably why the song became so popular.
    Almost time.
    Later.
- posted by Gail Rae @ 12:57   email  this post