Changes

"It's too late to alter course now, mateys! Dying is the day worth living for!"
Hector Barbosa

That line has been going thru my head all afternoon. It's actually a very insightful statement, though I doubt an eighth of the audience has caught it or understands.

Failing to live each day as though it is your last leaves a lot of people with regrets when they sit back and mull over what has gone before. Personally, I am hoping for a Viking or Klingon ending to this life- running headlong into battle in the cause of justice, freedom or protection of those weaker. No lingering until it is over.

My step mom is getting rapidly worse, and it is just a waiting game now. My dad is finally starting to realise he cannot do it alone, and I think my step sister will successfully talk him into Hospice help. They were a godsend for my own mom's last days. Mary has stopped being willing to swallow pills, for reasons that the dementia makes it hard to understand. As a result, her pain levels, which were already on the rise, are getting worse. She doesn't want to eat or drink. She cannot remember sometimes what she did or said 15 minutes before. Not so oddly, I have been reading a lot about brain function lately, and watching this progress as such a close proximity is scary. It takes so little for the essence of what and who we are to disappear.

I recognise one thing for certain: the not eating, the increase in sleeping, the desire to stop doing things that pleased some small part of the self....these are all signs of a dying creature.I have been through the same series of changes with dogs, cats, humans, birds, even fish. I think I would look at this differently if she has her mental faculties, but it really hit home today. I had not yet shed any tears over this. Mary made her own decisions about not fighting the cancer, and I respect that. I just hate seeing once so vibrant a person fade in this manner. The biggest blessing is that she doesn't remember. She doesn't even know she has cancer- the cause of the pain in her side. It's all such a mixed bag. She doesn't remember the cancer, but she is aware that she's dying. She told Sandy that she was going to go where her mom and dad are. When she said it, she was pointing at the family grave plot, but I do not believe that is what she meant. She was talking, without the words to say it that way, about dying.
And she doesn't remember that she's slowly losing the ability to communicate. Mary's mom had Alzheimer's, and Mary was terrified of getting it after watching what it did to her mom. Ironically, Mary doesn't even remember that now.

My step brother Dave came home for a few days, and it was after his visit that things started a downhill slide. Mom wanted to see her boy again. Tying up loose ends sort of. My mom did the same thing. Once everyone had had a chance to visit, it was okay to let go. In hindsight, I started seeing the pattern, and I am seeing it now. All life passes from this place- it is the way of things. It is what grace we choose to use that marks the brave from the weak. The Buddha taught that all things we know in this life will be gone in 100 years. No matter how much we cling to the idea of immortality, what we are will end.

But...physics also has some wisdom. Energy does not die; it merely changes shape. What we truly are is compact energy, so while this body as we perceive it may dis purse to the four winds, what we truly are does not die. I will leave the religious ramifications of all that to the individual. I already know where I stand.

I am going to go look for a story sent to me once to post here. If you can, send a prayer to the Gods for my step mom's swift and as painless as possible passing. While not what some would want to hear, it is the best for all involved.

namaste