Drove to Boston today with my wife and sons to see my dying mom. Don’t want to live life holding false hope. Just call it hope and keep rolling. She knows and God knows where we are. Even with a miracle, a temporary stay, she’s not moving to that condo taxes double in Amherst. Margins. They beat the pneumonia while her lung’s collapse with diabetes too there’s not enough strength to rise, to rise, to rise from that whipping bruised, can’t see hardly talk I’m tired I’m tired enough to rise from lying down with the earth.
I walked into the room alone. Left everyone out there. “Oh, it’s not looking good. It’s. Not. Looking. Good,” slightly shaking her head, eye patch over the infected one, tubes from her nose. Told her what I wanted to say alive. About marrying man with two kids gnarly divorce stepping in and raising us. Lovely, wonderful, giving mom.
Everybody needs to quiet down, mindful, present. World. You. Me. I Lord need to be present at the Wall. Standing on my line. With our time. Need to be.
There’s no way you’ve explored enough thinking about the end. The last breath. Mortally tired. There’s no way you’ve seen that line clearly. Imagined beyonds necessary. Everybody’s imagined beyond worthy. Listen to what people say about theirs. Check the well-articulated institutionalized after-fantasy. Is it cruel that we die? And, if so, why? It’s a miracle we do, and so why. If we know we die, what to conclude? What is the meaning of life?
To balance consciousness of death with living. To reconcile living death without going mad. Without being afraid. System in place for the final step. I’d believe your imagined beyond, too. Embrace you while you’re here. Our joy building final bravery. Our task to release into Love. Chemicals euphoric, I’ve seen heaven, Dad. Upon death, brain releases orgasmic medicament, floods the body, knowing final cries. Fade, fade, goodbye. Final cries to the imagined beyond. Reaching for a fictive bond. Tell myself anything to deal with this finality. Terminus. Who are we and what are we doing?
Who are you? What is this, what is this, and where do we go after. Where is the line. Do we hope to stay? I’m tired, I’m so tired.
“It’s too bad I’m not going to see that baby,” she moaned it. Speaking of my brother’s first due in May. I’ll see her for you, Mom. We’ll see the baby and give her all your love, all the love you would have given her, and tell her about you, about your love, your life. What is this? What is cancer? More than a few women in Heidelberg developed similar strains. Dad and more than many said it was Chernobyl. If you know Central Europe and know we weren’t allowed to play outside or touch the grass or drink the water right then, there, then, if you know it’s not a step away from possible.
Doesn’t look good, honey. Her nephew brother’s son my cousin driving from New York, my brother flying from Cleveland, my brother and his son my nephew flying from Asheville. Picking them up at the airport in Providence at midnight. When it’s supposed to be thirteen degrees and snowing on Tuesday driving to Boston. Will mom still be here on Tuesday? I don’t know. Will I receive an emergency call tomorrow afternoon? I don’t know. We walked the Pike to see the Kidney Nobel again. My boys have been there twice. Oh mom, this isn’t fair. Mom, why do we die? What’s it like, that close. Like it is now. What are you thinking? Not really thinking. Are you afraid? Have you reconciled? Are you preparing yourself, or does it come naturally and, at last, thoughtlessly? Is death easy or difficult, are you in pain, struggling? Some sort of cruel joke! And if we Know, what’s the point of knowing? Must be a reason rises from knowing expiry, developing cosmologies. A Finding, a Place, a Position, psychologically, neurologically, a settled understanding. We discovered consciousness so that we could . . . transcend? Know death in order to do what in life? In order to have what sort of conversations, write what kind of books? What’s our communication?
We walked from the Towers on Sunday quiet parked on the 4th floor to the coffee shop across from the private school. With Dad where I walked with Mom during his heart surgery and she couldn’t move a block without resting against a post; mailbox; concrete wall; her collapsed lung, while dad recovered from bypass. Heartbeat, gaining strength, mom fades. Not looking good, honey. It’s. Not. Looking. Good. Peered out at me through one eye. Showed her a picture of the boys framed and some cards they made. Her spoon shook with broth; fork quivered macaroni, heading to her mouth not making it.