A Reader asks Auntie SAM how to cope with her dying Mom.
Dear Auntie SAM: My Mom has a blood disease that’s killing her, but she’s not in pain and is still rational, which almost makes it harder. We talked about hospice today. She’s saying she doesn’t want to die because she wants to see her grandchildren grow up. It’s heart wrenching. How do I cope ?
Autumn is my favorite season. When I feel its crisp air surround my skin, I recall arena white lights illuminating 100 yard fields where boys who wanted to be men would give their all for a touchdown.
I recall my favorite fest. In a darling town near my hometown along a creek in which you can still ride a boat pulled by donkeys walking along the shore. In which the best applebutter is made.
I recall hayrides & haunted mazes & Halloweenie Happeneenie: a primal bonfire set in the woods and recently harvested fields dotted with beer trucks tapped to bring young farmworkers – teenagers – glee.
There are few things better than a slow walk along a long path enrobed in autumn’s leaves. A walk in which your heart hears only the crush of something still beautiful, but gone.
Leaves turn their most beautiful as they’re dying.
Not their last gift. They return to us as mulch cultivating life anew. But for their 11th hour gift — like Valkyries before the blaze — they radiate eternal warmth; fierceness; and the delicacy of nature’s charms.
I once heard a professor exclaim: there is no now. „Now“ can never exist because as soon as one allows the hum of an „n“ & the opened mouth kiss of an „o“, the moment is gone before we get to blow „w“.
That philosophy seems to me an eternal existential miasma of dread.
What you fear right now is no „Now“. You’re facing a future that will destroy a person you love as its whims. That promise captivates your todays & destroys your tomorrows.
And that, as you wrote, is overwhelming. So. How do you cope ? Narrow your eyes.
Your loved one’s death only feels more acute because an uncontrollable threat has entered your world. Your loved one – human – was always going to die.
And every grandparent wants to see their grandkids grow up. Just as every parent wants to see their children happy. Saying it only brings truth into words. Some people need to say things. They need you to hear things. And if you can hear them (with your heart), that’s your gift.
And I get the double-sword of added guilt that the kids she may miss growing up are yours. But those guilty feelings are illusions. Your kids bring her joy. Period.
Darling. In times of crisis, it is easier to indulge fantasies about time & our contribution to it rather than admit:
Time has only ever allowed us – you & I & all we love – the here & now. Humans have never had a future. And you know that, if ever you had a broken heart. Lost loves really only take some day to day support & a lot of fantasies about tomorrow.
Just fantasies. Adorable, dilettantisch, wrapped with a bow for human consumption fantasies.
„Now“ is when your loved one has only ever been able to see her grandkids grow up. And „Now“ is when you can make that time special.
Bring small art projects for your kids to do with her or beside her. Teach them a dance they can perform for her. Or their alphabet or tying shoes — skills that show her they’re growing up. Reassure her: they’ll be OK.
Focusing on things like this will give you short-term goals to achieve & free you from the overwhelming ideas that consume you now.
But here’s the key: the goal is not actually to complete any task. The goal is to let your mind escape the lie that you ever had a tomorrow so you & your family can be present today.
The memories we create stay with us. But „now“ — from the hum to kiss to the blow — is all we’ve ever had.
Bring magic.
XO
AS
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ENGLISH COMEDY is BACK. Basel’s ENGLISH THEATRE GROUP SEMI-CIRCLE brings to the stage TRUE COLOURS. Performance dates: 6, 7, 12, 13, & 14 November. Theater Arlecchino, Walkeweg 122 (near St. Jakob-Park). Doors 7PM. Show 8PM.
Then DANCE THE RAUNCHY RAWHIDE CHICKEN at SääLI. Don your Sh#T-Kickers (as we used to say on THE FARM) & have a BARN-RAISIN‘ GOOD TIME. Saturday. 10 PM.