Late fall promises to be a challenge for me this year. My mother fell...and she did it up big...back on September 12th. She's been in rehab and they will be discharging her home next week. Their recommendation is for 24/7 supervision in order to keep her safe. After hitting Broad Street with her right cheekbone and forehead, her cognitive skills are not likely to ever be the same. She has had a cerebral shower somewhere along the way but the big right brain damage may have actually been what caused her to fall. She easily becomes confused and disoriented. If she heads to the bathroom she can easily get distracted and forget what she is doing. Her motor planning is poor and walking with a walker can put her into strange conundrums...how to turn so her rear end lands on the seat. She also has significant left side peripheral blindness that can cause her to misjudge location...and she can keep bumping into the same obstruction over and over without a clue as to how to successfully proceed. The thing is...she is otherwise still herself. She is charming and funny...full of jokes and not very demanding. She can still perform her own toilet and with lots of verbal cues, she can dress herself. And eating? No problem. The rehab wanted us to send her to a longterm care facility. And we can't do it. Mom has always made her heart clear regarding end of life. She wants to die at home...plain and simple. She has never questioned that outcome and therefore, has never planned or even thought about the possibility that she may not be able to stay home until the moment of her death. She repeatedly comments on how much she loves her home and how lucky she has been to live so comfortably. We, her four daughters, want to grant her her wish if at all possible. I can't even begin to share the crests and troughs of emotions that I have experienced with her as my mother. I've screamed in a fit of rage...I hate you to her. I've cried alone wishing she would comfort me and I've written her poems expressing my love. Somehow. as she stands at the threshold of her end of life, all the baggage of a lifetime falls away. I put my arms around my brain-injured mother and look into her blue blue eyes and I can't remember anything. All that exists is my love for her and my prayer that her wish be granted. Tomorrow I will seek out the Meteor showers that will occur as our planet passes through a debris field of Halley's comet. They predict a shower of shooting stars. 15 per hour. Is that enough stars to wish on? All the time of 59 years has passed and my mother is 85. Yet I am still her child...I still feel her all caring arms around me and her ever present curiosity in what I am doing in my life. Who will I be when she is no longer there to reflect my existence? The whole universe shifted when Dad died...what will happen without her to relate to? I remain that small child...her number 2 daughter...and when I go down to offer my care and support as she comes home...I hope I will have wished on 100 stars for her one desire to come true. She really never asked for much.
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