The last year has been about decline...watching its relentless progress...allowing it to manifest...observing without intervening...in our feline companion we have always thought of as our child...in my mother who it feels is now becoming our child...
Our sweet kitty has undergone a tremendous transformation...once alert, loving, attentive...now increasingly self-absorbed and demanding...she wants food when she wants it...she wants attention when she wants it...she want sleep when she wants it...
Conversely, Mom could not care less about food...adores any bit of attention that comes her way...longs for one good night's sleep...prays every day she will go to sleep and not awaken...explains to anyone who will listen that this has not yet happened only because God thinks she "hasn't been a good enough girl"...
Mom...who began surrendering her needs to others long before I was born...first to a brother she adored...then to a husband, my Dad, who become seriously ill early in their young marriage...then to me..and again to her mother in the years following Grandpa's death...
Madonna and child, Mission San Carlos Borroméo del río Carmelo
Mom...who has loved every child she ever taught and every neighborhood kid who lived on the block...who had tried for nine years to get pregnant and then suffered seven months of the worst morning sickness ever...who has exemplified her gracious Southern heritage throughout her entire life...who has never had a cocktail...who has never smoked a cigarette...who had waited until she was 85 years old to speak unkindly of someone in my presence (and, coincidentally, swear...the only time I remember that happening)...
Mom...who has patiently waited for whatever comes...who makes no demands...who has no complaints...and has always been a very good girl...by anyone's standards...
Earth Mother
She softened
gradually, melting in
the light of
the sun, all the
while thinking,
O, this is what
it's like to be
a planet
& suddenly it was
over
& the universe
expanded by one.
— Brian Andreas