“How’s Your Mom?””

I am on the phone with an old friend from NJ, who asks, “How’s your mom?”

I don’t know what to tell her. On the one hand, she may want the truth. On the other hand, she is probably just being polite. Maybe she’s really asking, “how are you with this whole thing?”

Here’s the truth: Mom is declining. But she is not, as the hospice nurse put it, “actively dying.”

I don’t want to bore her with the medicines, the daily care, the weirdness of dementia in general. It is tiresome just living it. And yet, I cannot say, as one often says as a polite fiction, “she’s fine.” We both know she’s not.

And then there’s the other unspoken question, which amounts to, “How long till she’s gone and you can resume your old life?”

Maybe nobody is really asking this question. It is on my mind, though. When a person is put on hospice care, they are supposed to be dying. And as tough as that is for both patient and family, there is an expectation of closure within a certain period of time.

In a weird way, this keeps you looking for new signs that death is approaching, just so the suspense will be over. Then you feel guilty for looking for signs that your loved one is dying. Some love, right? On the other hand, you cannot reasonably hope that they will get better. And just living in the present and maintaining the status quo is pretty depressing also.

I am not the only person whose life presents daily challenges. The only way to not be depressed is to regard the members of my body as instruments of righteousness. I was put here for such a time as this, by a God who knows my name and numbers my hairs and my days. Maybe this is also true for people whose loved ones are not actively dying, but merely making others wish they were.

And another thing….. I keep making this all about me. If it were me in the bed, wouldn’t I want another day to see the trees in the yard, eat ice cream, and enjoy “The Sound of Music”? If Mom can experience these things, why would I want to hurry her out of this world and into the next? For her sake? Or mine? So that I can…. what? Travel? See my grandchildren? Is this what God wants for me now? Hasn’t He provided recent trips to see extended family even as far away as Europe?

He has. What is Mom’s condition keeping me from doing?

It turns out, not that much. Maybe not anything more than what other people give up just to do their jobs and put bread on the table.

I have decided to tell friends that Mom is slowly declining, but we are still doing our best to make her life as pleasant as possible. When will my old life resume? Maybe never. Should I expect it to? Will my life ever be what it was? Will I ever again be the person I was even last year at this time? I don’t think so. Maybe that’s a good thing.