My mother is in her final days

The following are some random notes I jotted down a month or so ago after my mother was admitted to the hospital. She is 85 years old.

My mother surrounded by myself and other family members on Mother's Day, 2012.   

So it appears my mother is in her final days. Unlike my father who had a switch ready to flip to end his life my mother lingers, drifting in slow motion down the River Styx toward her demise. If she had the life ending switch to flip she is not, at the moment, ready to flip it.

There is a small creek that runs behind the house I grew up in, the house that's been my mother's home for 64 years. My siblings and I would play along the edged of that creek against our mother's wishes. Though it was only a foot or two deep, depending upon the season, I suppose she feared one of us might accidentally drown, especially when we were very young. Inevitably she would catch us playing there and we would be scolded in some fashion. But where we played along the banks was hidden from view of the house, obscured by trees and brush. We were mystified how she knew we were there. We determined she must have some sort of extra sensory power, one that she obtained by drinking from the dark stream.

I remember once when it was early Winter and there was a sheet of ice over the creek and I went down there to throw rocks on it, shattering the ice like glass. It was great fun. One rock after another. The stream was quite shallow at the time. The larger rocks crash through the ice and sent up great splashes of mud. One of those eruptions sent a large frog into the air along with the mud. The creature was stiff with its legs extended. It was strange and weird. The poor Devil must have been hibernating in the mud.