By Susan Tweit
One morning, I was sitting with my mom in her bedroom, feeding her a cherry danish broken up in tiny pieces. Her hospital-type bed held her upright; her frail body was propped up with pillows.
After I fed her a bite, her mouth opening obediently like that of a baby bird, she said,
“How do I get out of this hospice stuff?”
I thought for a minute. “You mean why do you need it?” I asked.
“I don’t want to be here,” she said.
“Well,” I said slowly, thinking, How do you tell your mother she’s dying, especially when you don’t know if the words will make sense in a brain affected by Alzheimer’s disease?
“The doctors evaluated your health. They looked at your bedsores; they looked at the break in your arm from last August that hasn’t healed; they looked at your weight and your frailty, and they concluded that your body is wearing out.”
“In order to keep you out of the hospital, to keep you at home and make sure you don’t have to suffer all sorts of invasive procedures, they recommended hospice care. They idea is to get Dad the help he needs in caring for you and to help you be comfortable as your body winds down.”
She looked at me with tears in her big blue eyes.
“You have a strong spirit and lots of willpower, Mom,” I said. “That’s what’s kept you going through these decades with debilitating rheumatoid arthritis. But your body is wearing out. That happens to all of us.”
Richard sat down on the other side of Mom’s bed.
“People do ‘graduate’ from hospice care, Joan,” he said. “Miracle cures happen. It’s not impossible, but it’s not likely either. None of us know what’s ahead, and we all want the best for you.”
She turned her head back to me, her blue eyes wide.
“I love you,” she said, after a minute. “Thank you for being here.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
We were quiet for a bit, and then I noticed that her gaze had drifted to the plate that still held bites of cherry danish.
“Do you want more danish?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. She opened her mouth, trusting, as I fed her each tiny bite. Then she closed her eyes. I kissed her cheek.
“We need to get on the road before the snow moves into the high country,” I said.
“I know. You need to go.”
“I love you. We’ll be back.”
“I love you, too.”
We gathered our stuff, hugged my dad, and headed off. Sometimes words are just not enough. But we do the best we can.
Take the time to tell the people you love just that. Because as my wise husband said, we don’t know what’s ahead, and it’s much better to feel a mite sappy and sentimental now than to be sorry later.
Love, it turns out, isn’t a finite resource. The more you use it, the more you love you have.
Award-winning writer Susan J. Tweit is the author of 12 books, and can be contacted through her web site, susanjtweit.com or her blog, susanjtweit.typepad.com
