Family

Mom’s Final Request

Pass the joint

photo by author — Mom at age 90. Check out the cigarette with the long ash. That was Mom!

My mother is 93 years old. The chances she will make it to her 94th birthday 6 months from now are slim to none. Mom is bed-ridden and almost deaf and blind. Seventy-five years of smoking cigarettes have finally caught up with her. She’s been diagnosed with lung cancer.

A few weeks ago my brother called to say “It could be any day now!” I phoned to make my peace with Mom, crying like a baby, barely able to tell her “I love you, Mom,” and “I’m sorry we couldn’t get along,” through all my sobbing. Then a funny thing happened. She stabilized! Nobody could believe it!

Yesterday, I received a call from a 561 number I did not recognize. It was my mother’s nurse. She put me on the phone with Mom who wanted to know why she felt nothing after smoking some pot the day before — and why did I think it was that she didn’t get high? I was speechless.

Mom is obviously not of the hippy or beat generation. I could not imagine for what reason she had taken up smoking pot. She’s a vodka girl. Suddenly Mom’s a pothead? How did that happen?

“What the hell are you doing smoking pot for the first time in your life when you have lung cancer?” I asked and half demanded.