I’m having a hard time trying to enjoy the beauty of winter this season. It’s a sad time. My mother in law is dying. My wife will stay here for a while and I will go back to visit with my mother for a bit. My mom is coming up on her 91st birthday and, as most of you know, she has Alzheimers and has been in assisted living for about 5 years. She is regressing slowly but still has her personality, and she’s happy most of the time. There are lots of things to do where she lives. She’s still able to function well enough to take some pleasure from life and being around people. That’s a blessing.
I’ll be coming back up here when the time comes, probably not too long now.
I’ve heard it said that nobody promised us a rose garden. So we make the best of it while we can. Then our time expires. If we’re lucky it does so without pain and sickness. I haven’t seen the lucky way in my immediate family yet. I’ve seen a lot of suffering as the life of my loved ones winds down. It is hard to watch. Fortunately for them denial has been an amazingly powerful emotion. My father carried it to the very end in spite of enormous suffering. My mother in law seems to be doing the same. I have read the stuff that says first we rage, and bargain with God, and all that. I haven’t seen that. I have just seen people not thinking about it. Death isn’t something they think about happening to them, not today anyway.
They live, until they just don’t anymore.