The last
good visit with Mum. We sat together in
the morning and we did not have lunch, which I regret. Rosemary, our favorite PCA, told me Mum needed
some things, so I left her to go shopping and returned after she had lunch and before
her nap. I brought her clothes and
magazines and a puzzle and we looked at pictures of flowers and gardens and we
were happy.
It is
not the last time that I will see her, but it will be our last good time
together. This visit is our parting of
ways. I know she is not doing well and I
don’t know. I think that she will die in
June. I am wrong. She will die in thirty-six days on Holy Saturday.
Four days short of forty. Maybe this is my personal Lent and I should
do something or refrain from doing something.
My Lent, like your Lent, has death; but, your Lent, unlike my Lent, ends
with a resurrection.
This gets
me to thinking. Had Mum risen from her
death bed, or had the funeral home called three days later (Your Mother is
up. Come get her, please.) that would
have presented a problem or two. Where
would I have taken Resurrected Mum? St.
Catherine's won’t have her back. They don’t
stand for this sort of thing in nursing homes, not even Catholic ones. Dad will have her, but she will not be able to
manage the stairs in the house. The
place she lived before already said that her condition was beyond them. Add resurrection to the mix and it really
becomes difficult. And, a resurrected
person sets a bad example. You don’t
want to put ideas in people’s heads that this sort of behavior is
acceptable. I am not sure if Mum will
keep this quiet, although she is good at keeping secrets. You can tell her anything and she keeps it to
herself. I try to model myself on her in
that respect, and many others. But I
draw the line at resurrection. (Actually,
the line is drawn somewhere around ironing bed sheets.)
Resurrected
Mum will live with us. I am not sure how
my husband will take the news. He might
have questions. How many times is she going
to do this? Do we have to file a tax
return for her? Is this genetic? All reasonable questions. The answer is: I don’t know. Not a reasonable answer.
She can
have the guest room. I doubt anyone will
stay with us ever again, so it’s not a problem.
I will hang her clothes in the closet and arrange them by color, like I did
before. I will buy her shoes and
slippers because intuition tells me that your shoe size changes when you rise
from the dead. She won’t have a driver’s
license, so I will drive her places. We
can make our Saturday trips to the library again. Watch Julia Child in the afternoon. Have tea and muffins and gossip (while not
telling secrets) about whoknowswhat.
Yes,
Resurrected Mum will live with me. And I
will find a way to make my family happy with this arrangement because I would
really like this.
I would
really like to have her back.
I want
her back.
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