Oh, I am one cold hard bitch

My mother is dying.
I know it.
I have worked long enough with old dying convicts to recognize it.

I spent a long week at the hospital two weeks ago before transferring her to an acute care nursing home, where she does not like it one little bit. She is totally out of control of her life and for a woman who has spent most of her life with the reins firmly in hand, this is the worst indignity.

Judythebeautiful is taking her home to Utah to die. Mom knows no one in Utah. I don't think she realizes that she doesn;t really even know Judy or Judy's husband (whom I don;t know or like) or Judy's four boys (don't much like them either).

Mike and I even thought about thowing ourselves under a train and having Mom move into the front room/get a practical nurse/have her live with us...until Ben talked some sense into us. Exactly who was going to sleep on the floor night after night? Becasue she couldn't be left alone. And kiss watching tv goodbye. Or talking to each other.

He should know, since he lived with her for six years.

So I guess instead of leaving for Bryce and the Grand Canyon for some R&R (well earned after the literal knock down and drag out at work), I'll be doing my turns at the nursing home, knitting in hand because it's the right thing to do.

And Ben and Lisi will take their turns because it's the right thing to do.

I'm their mother and I raised thoughtful adults.

Not stupid adults, but thoughtful ones.

The same ones who'll be sitting with me when I'm the one in the nursing home.

I stopped by tonight on the way home NOT BECAUSE I WANTED TO but because she's a sick old woman and there is no one else to stop by.
It was pathetic.
She was so alone and sad and scared and I thought of my own self with my million friends (okay, a good many of them don't really know me and a good many of them are felons, but they say hello to me every day and send me notes and I answer them and send them little happy faces so they COUNT)....and then I think of the thousands of kids who have poured through my classroom doors and my friends from high school and from college and from Payson Junior High and from LAUSD and from all the gazillion places I've taught and I thought it's only for just a few more days.

I have people like inky who emails me about my black eyes and Rachel (whohoo) who emails me about her poster and guys like Lyle who asks if he could possibly convince me to throw down dinner if he plays at the Fox like Danny has asked him to...my life is so incredibly rich and full and she is so afraid of where I am sending her to.

And so am I.