Category Archives: Last things

Intermezzo

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We are waiting. My brother, his wife, my wife and I have been around and in and out of my mother’s home for a little over two weeks. The hospice nurse has been expecting the wait to end momentarily, but my mother is not following that script.

On the night that my father died, as we sat in the ICU waiting area one night in March almost 13 years ago, there was a mockingbird outside the open window. It was probably 3 am. We were waiting for my brother to come back from Chattanooga so he could be there when we gave the order to disconnect life support. The mockingbird sang and sang whole time we sat there.

Now the sound I hear in my mother’s room is the whirring of a humidifier. At least the oxygen concentrator has been turned off, so its hum, gurgle and hiss is gone. We put a television in the room and connected it to my old laptop so Mother could watch her NCIS reruns, but by the time it was set up, she was no longer interested. Later they found some big-band music and some classical music, but now all the TV does is rotate through my screen images. She’s uncommunicative. Her eyes are closed, and she hasn’t eaten or drunk anything in a week. None of us can understand how she keeps on going.

She’s damned tough.

Home again

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My mother came home from the hospital last Friday. We brought her dog Lucy back from our house, where she had stayed for the week or so that Mother was in the hospital. Lucy was happy again. She jumped up on the bed and settled down next to her. My mother was also happy to see Lulu. My mother will be sleeping mostly on her back now, so Lucy can’t keep her back warm. But maybe she can keep her leg warm, at least for a while.

Warm dog. Good dog

Warm dog. Good dog

I think we’ll inherit Lucy one day in the not too distant future. I prefer big dogs, but there’s really no one else to keep her, and she has been a good companion for my mother for a long time. When the time comes, Lucy will deserve her retirement up on the mountain.

The long and the short

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It was cloudy all day Monday, but when we left the hospital that night, it was clear. Not much cooler, but clear enough. The sidewalk was wet and the street looked black and slick. The gravel in our driveway was dark, and water was dripping from the metal roof. It’s easy to understand why people say that dew falls, because the areas under the trees were dry, as if the dew had not fallen through the pine needles. But, of course, dew doesn’t really fall, it condenses on surfaces that have a clear view of the sky. To the infrared eyes of the Earth, a clear night sky is a very cold thing, so the surfaces loses its heat quickly and the moisture in the air condenses on the now-cold surface.

Tuesday morning was still warm. Fog hid everything below the mountain, but we were clear, at least until I took the dogs for a walk.

Zeke and Lucy

Zeke and Lucy

There was a little fog here and there, but it was mostly clear.

Lucy, my mother’s little dog, accompanied Zeke and me. We call her Lucy, Lulu, Lucille, or sometimes Lucifer, but she’s not really a bad dog at all. She has been a true friend and companion for my mother for probably 10 years. We started encouraging Mother to get a dog for company soon after my father died, and eventually she gave in. It’s a funny thing to watch, if you know my mother. She was never a dog person. All our childhood pets had to stay outside, and she never did much more than touch their heads with her fingertips. And now Lucy sleeps on her bed, tucked right up against her back. And she lies on Mother’s lap when Mother reclines and watches NCIS reruns.

Lucy is staying with us until Mother goes home. And then Lucy will go back home with her and keep her back warm until the end.