I am slowly allowing myself to realize that this will be my mother’s last infirmity.  I kept playing devil’s advocate with myself as she’s failed over the past couple of weeks–how on earth could she fail so quickly?–but this is one of the ways it happens.  It boils down, I think, to an injury of her spirit.  Something within her is saying, “It’s time to go.”

As if on cue, a bed opened up in the skilled nursing unit at Garden Manor, and she’ll be moving back there soon.  Her doctor mentioned something about a feeding tube and I said NO NO NO.  She’s 86 years old (yesterday was her birthday) and the past few years have been difficult for her.  I will have Hospice attend to her.  Right now she is halfway there, I think–she sleeps a lot and mumbles about her teaching days. She doesn’t seem to be in any great pain or distress (unless someone lifts her the wrong way).  I don’t want any more CT scans or x-rays or stretchers.  She will go gently.