And so it will continue until it does not

Florida: Heaven's (or Hell's, I suppose) waiting room, goes the old
joke. Not so funny now.

Blogging, new year's resolutions, little tasks I set for myself on
this five week visit -- applying to grad school, reading, writing,
exercising, quality family time -- all seem insurmountable, each a
selfish indulgence from my main purpose at the moment: caring for my
mother. An insurmountable battle of wills, of beings, of love and of
grief.

This is where I prayed I would be again and am thankful to be: my
mother's house. Each time I begin a task there is the need for water
or tea or, more urgently the applesauce (the code word for morphine
that she takes with the applesauce) or something to add to the
shopping list or what will we cook for dinner or remember-the-time-
when discussions or the voice in my head of shouldn't-you-be-sitting-
with-her-guilt or shouldn't-you-do-yoga guild or simply the
distraction of waiting for something dreaded and anticipated and
feeling like you can't move until it is over.

But it is not over. Will never be over.

So, instead I wait for the promised phone call. For an inspired
thought. For a moment of synchronized lucidity where we can
connect. For the quality time to magically make it all blissful and
joyous as we cry in happiness and expected loss.

But it never comes.

Meditation, yoga . . . that will help, except the guilt when I close
the door on her in her recliner and the TV blaring over the hum of
the oxygen concentrator.

So we clean, purge, go through her piles of papers, evidence of her
life, her dreams for meaning, vitality, and purpose, feeling, like so
many, that just being is not enough. I throw out pamphlets for
concert halls and travel destinations all over Florida filled with
pictures of people in high fashion of the 1980's, for places to
volunteer when she retired (never knowing she would be the one who
needed volunteers to help her). We purge and purge hoping to find
the answers underneath, but we can't seem to get to the bottom. If
we did, then we would have to face this, and though we have talked
about it and I have meditated and prayed, though I prepared for my
last visit during my last vacation, this one being a bonus visit, I
still am not sure I am ready. Or maybe I am too ready?

Doubt pervades everything. I dream of endings and beginnings in one
thought, simultaneous writing letters of love and of despair and
goodbye.

In the meantime, I clean, I shop, I cook (superbly sub-par meals), I
sort. At times I sit and listen or share. At times I ignore the
guilt to go run or dance or read. And so it will continue, I
suppose, until it does not, as I try to remember each moment the
preciousness of each moment.