Addendum to "Early Morning Thoughts On Ma"

I was so blown away by the comments and emails that I got about my post yesterday that I thought I'd add a little to it, both in terms of my Mom and myself. I think part of the freedom of blogging (as opposed to really crafting an essay or a short story) is that it allows the writer to capture a moment in real time and share it, without spending a lot of time pondering and thinking about what might be being said or anyone else's reaction to it. I'm not sure everyone uses this format in this way, but I certainly do, and it might be in direct response to workshops in grad school that I put my feelings and thoughts out there without torturing myself about them. I also sort of let them go after I post them, often times almost forgetting that they'll be read and reacted to.

That said, I've never had this kind of blogging experience, in terms of what I'm grappling with in losing my mom. When my sister was sick I took copious notes, but never started writing about what happened to my family until a good two years later, and in that time, while I could still access the emotions and experiences, what I ended up putting down wasn't as raw as all of this.

At any rate, what I really want to say is this: thank you. Thank you for reading and responding, for having the courage to post comments and pieces of your own stories, for letting me know I'm surrounded by so much love in this process, that you are all being affected by my words and experiences. Writers live in a vacuum so much of the time, that even when they publish, they often never really know how their stories affect people; I get the benefit of that all the time right here. Can't wait until I get a book out there for real, because it's going to be amazing in that sense.

I also want to say (for those of you who don't know my mom or haven't read all that much about her) that while she doesn't want to die, she has no fear at all about actually doing it. Her sense of faith is so established that she knows she'll be taken care of and guided then in the same way she has been her whole life. She's also worked in geriatric social work and Hospice her entire career, so that is perhaps why I'm so brutally honest about what's happening here, as in a sense, I grew up in it, no matter how much I tried to ignore that fact. Um, you could barely get me in those nursing homes she worked in. Are you kidding? The smell alone, not to mention all that wrinkly old people skin. Please. Pass! I can't admit my sense of all that has changed much, although at least death is a little less daunting watching my mom go through this.

She also instilled such a sense of honesty in our household growing up, having been totally repressed in her childhood, never allowed to say what she really felt. Some of you might have read this before, but I had a close friend in junior high who loved coming to our house (as hers was often filled with tension and repression) because you could say whatever you wanted . She called it "The House of Truth." So part of writing about all of this is honoring her in that way too, and I get that it might be too much for most people, which is another reason I've been so blown away by the responses I've gotten since this whole debacle started in May.

At any rate, just know that despite yesterday's post, we are all doing pretty ok. Especially my mom. She has those moments infrequently, and through some combination of doing meditation and yoga for years, the awareness that she's dying and whatever is happening to her brain, she has almost instantaneous memory loss of most things. She might remember that she broke down or was sad, but by the next day, none of it has the weight and power it did yesterday, and she is on to the next moment. And the next. She is mastering the art of being right here, right now, and because she is like this, it allows the rest of us to do the same.

In fact, we went out yesterday to see the Dogwoods and Cherry trees blooming and she said, "Isn't it amazing how they come back?" And in that moment, everything was perfect.

Ma and Jim, taking in spring.

Away we go.