Going Home

Our Mother, who is 73, has had a stroke. This happened two weeks ago. She was sitting in her chair in the TV room watching Bones, one of her favorite shows, with Dad. He looked over to find her asleep...or so he thought. He called to her and when she didn't respond, he thought she was playing possum, a game not unlike her to play, mischief maker that she has always been. Upon closer examination, he found her to be completely unresponsive. After calling my sister, Tracy, and my very capable niece, Lauren, an ambulance was summoned and Mom was wisked away to Maine Coast Memorial Hospital. Soon all the family that could was gathered around her ER bed waiting for answers, news, any information that would lend itself to our rallying as a family around her, once again, in love and support.

Today she is at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. We all take turns visiting her, feeding her, talking to her. We all take turns looking into her eyes for signs of recognition. We look for her Intentions. We feel her energy and her spirit beleagered and weary. And we wonder....is she conveying to us that enough is enough already?

I suppose it all depends on what you believe. What does Mom believe? She raised us as Jehovah's Witnesses with a firm belief in only 144,000 go to heaven and the rest might get resurrected to life on a paradise earth at some unspecified time in the future. That is if you are deemed worthy. What does Mom believe now? What she always believed in her soul, in her heart, in her knowing parts. She knows that this life is not all there is. She knows that our time here in this plane of existence is an experience meant to be a wild ride of any manner of drama that could be manifested. She believes in angels and spirits and frivolity and that this time is not the only time. She believes that her sister, Diane, waits for her on the Other Side, along with her grandmothers and so many other loved ones that have passed before her. She's not afraid of what comes next. It's just the next adventure to her.

We wonder, we question, we query....is this time of stroke where she is losing her faculties and her touch with all of us out here an interim period so that we can all adjust to her departure? She seems only half here as it is. She doesn't seem distressed or scared or worried. But she also doesn't seem that interested in reconnecting to this life, this world. Hilary says, "I think her soul has run this life's course." And it's odd...there just seems to be a general acceptance among us...like we are in segue...moments of quiet to honor and respect this transitional time.

I used to believe that the "dead are conscious of nothing at all" because that's what I was taught within the confines of that religion. I suppose we can believe anything that we want to believe. We can endorse any concept that brings us comfort in times of duress, times of loss, times of change. All I really know is, that no matter how fucked up our family has been, no more and no less than most other families in these times in which we live I might add, ours has navigated the years with laughter, sincerity, integrity, humility, a zest for learning and laughter....I know I already said laughter, but it cannot be overstated or underestimated. When all is said and done, we, each and every member of our family, even Kevin, know what love is because we have known each other. Love doesn't give up on each other when times are tough. Love doesn't stay mad for a life time. Love shows up time and time again to generate that unique energy of Family with all its foibles, all its idiosyncricies, all its conflicting personalities....all because that's what we're made of.....love.

So, for now, Mom seems to be holding her own,not really able to convey what she is thinking or feeling, save for the occasional Taz Face or rolling of her eyes at Dad. And she laughs at our stories in all the right places which tells us she is still with us...for now. *sigh* How can we not endeavor to journal these times? How can we not honor her with our continued sense of humor at her ill fitting clothes and how many faces she makes at the vile food they try to feed her? And when they look at us askance, not understanding that we are not laughing at her for she taught us all from a very young age not to take these things too seriously, we know our laughter is the sound of our love....