Notes from visiting mom at hospice: she is very emotional

Last night, December 13,  I was visiting my mother hospice. It was interesting and sad. During the 3 hour visit she went through a string of emotions. At this point she seems out of touch with reality at times.
First thing I put my hand on her head ands barked at me saying "Keep your hands off me! "

Why?
"You know why. All you do is lie to me like everybody else."

She proceeded to admonish me for being a conspirator and lying to her about everything. Eventually she focused on other topics. She began talking abut the "farm" and other odd things. She wanted to know who's truck was parked in the driveway. She asked me if the LaBrie's ( a neighboring farm family) where moving into her house. Then she wanted to know where my father was. Why hadn't she seen him for so long.  I carefully reminded her that the passed away a number years ago. She looked at me with disgust and said, "That is just more lies. Want to know where he is and all you people can do is lie to me."

Eventually she became sad. I told her I had to leave and go home but I would be back. Withtears rolling don her cheeks she said I had better return because she didn't want to be alone. "Why don't you go upstairs and get some blankets and sleep on th couch," she asked.  "Or go upstairs, get some blankets and you can stay upstairs and go to bed. Or you can sleep on the couch."

She went on to say she didn't understand what she did to deserve such treatment and that what ever it was she was really sorry for it, all the while weeping. I told her everything was going to be ok. "My heart is breaking," she said, "and I don't know what to do about it. There is know one I can turn to for help, no one I can truly trust."  It was killing me to see her so sad and helpless.


What she really would like is to go home. I think that is what bothers her the most. A week torso earlier the Better Half and I were with her when she went through similar sad spell. In that one she expressed her desire to go home and she didn't seem to understand where she was. To that she said, " I know if I just stay here in one place eventually Ronnie will find me."

To see her feeling helpless is is tough.

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.