Mom..

It’s another chapter today but in a different place: a doctor’s office- an ob/gyn where it doesn’t matter what the matter is because I, as one of those two who love this woman most in the world, will not allow anymore treatments of anything for anything except pain. If she wanted some Mogen David wine after 40 years of no Mogen David, I’d be on my way to buy some now, and a wine glass, and a linen napkin, here, Mom, sit here and I will pour a glass for you. 2009 was a very good year and if you’re in pain or not, drink all you want.. 

She won’t sit still. “I want to get up I’m tired of sitting,” so she is up and she walks and there is nowhere to walk so it is ok to walk everywhere, and when she’s done walking she can sit down anywhere or lie down in whatever bed is nearby..it is the doing the moving the getting up the sitting the movingmovingmoving steppstepstep which matters, it is her work, her quest, and then she stops and turns around and I catch my breath when she asks anyone nearby, maybe me:

“Where’s my Mother? Where did she go?” 

For the 10,000th time in the last five years I lie, “She went to town to get some groceries.”

And I, and we, are  told again, that “She is the best Mother in the world. She is.”

“Where is she again?” She went town. (10,001)

“When will she be back?” In about 30 minutes. (10,002)

“I can’t sit that long.” We’ll walk around for awhile then..

There is an aide from the Care Center with her who will accompany Mom into the exam room where the doctor will probe. Probe. Does an 84 year old who is not-in-pain, who also has alzheimers and doesn’t know or care that she has some slight vaginal bleeding, really need probed? 

Does a woman who used to bake pies, organize church dinners, and teach high school Sunday School classes and who doesn’t know her mom and her  husband are dead or where she is, or who I am at this exact moment really, really need to be probed? And with what? Nonono..I don’t want to know and please don’t tell me even when it’s over I don’t ever want to know..

She doesn’t want to be probed. She wants (she said it again 10 minutes ago and 2 minutes ago) to go home and go to bed and let God come and get her. She said that and she says that often. Please, God, hear her prayer.

Hear her prayer, please, her and my prayer and Denny’s prayer, and Karen’s and Robbie’s prayer and JoshuaDarcySarahEmilyLizzieBob’s prayer and her sisters’ prayers and her nephews’ and nieces’ prayers too, and let her go home, let her go to bed, and take her. Come get her. One more time, come get her. That’s what she wants. She doesn’t need to be probed anymore.

Amen