My mom's been sick and I know I've had alot of posts about dying and mom leaving the ultimate betrayal of mom leaving me to go off and die! Like she's supposed to or something like all nature does except for plastic bags and batteries and paint and Demi Moore and Dyan Cannon.
But I've been slogging through this last illness and she hasn't been that bad, really, even though the irony of me NOT having hospice now that she's actually at the scarier end of the stick, NOT having a staff that will show up or a nurse who's reliable, it is the way of life
But I've done everything like in the past, the breathing treatment, the cough med, sitting up straight all night, oxygen, antibiotic. I did it a little less frantically because she was eating, she was relatively ok until the cough started to sound like fat wet washcloths
then
The first antibiotic day I sat her in poppa's big chair and cut her hair and clipped her nails and gave her queen treatment. And yesterday she sat up in the regular chair and didn't need oxygen so I wasn't too worried just halfway, I could have almost a regular day. Then this morning she is still running low oxygen after breathing treatment so I put her back on oxygen just keep that number above 95, lots of fluids, and let her rest. Go eat breakfast Jule, the regulator in me thought.
But I want to say before I left I put my head on her belly and looked up at her cause she only looks at you if you angle in there and lying your head on your mom's lap is nice anyway and I told her she was having a little sickness but we'd take good care of her, I would be here, cause she's my sweetheart
She crinkles her eyes still in that sweet way, and she does this squint where she raises one eyebrow and tips her head slightly like are you sure about that like she'd do if you made a joke
and I love that to the very end to right now this point in dementia my mom still plays
the part of the brain that regulates warmth and spirit, humor, is with you to the very end
if you had it to begin with
we aren't abandoned by our humor it cradles us which makes me know that it is (if you're lucky) a core of life
Like Ricky Gervais when his mom died, at her funeral, his younger brother was in charge of telling the priest about their mom so he could say nice things since they weren't religious and the priest knew nothing about her. And the younger brother gave the priest the names of all 4 of her boys but purposely told him Larry instead of Gary for his older brother so at the funeral when the priest was talking to a grieving room about how she loved her sons, especially Larry, the brothers giggled
The way a mom would want
So when I have to be doing the other parts that eventually come, the scattering of ashes or the empty bed I can think as I fling the dust out onto the river in Maryland and most of her gets back in my face, I can think about her tipping her head and raising her eyebrow in her hospital bed, with my head on her lap looking up
her face crinkling at me like really Jule
