Mom's Gone

Mom passed this past Tuesday. She was put in hospice on Monday and did not linger. Was Good.

Not COVID, congestive heart failure which is just as slow and painful.

I got to see her but she was all drugged up. She could hear us. When I came in, I said "Hi Mom" and her head twitched and her eyes rolled like REM trying to open. I really so wanted to talk to her, but you get what you get. She was not waking up.

My baby brother was there at the hospice.

"Baby", ha. The weight was all on his broad shoulders. And my sister-in-law, his wife, a saint. A bitch saint, but a saint nonetheless. (No, I love my sis-in-law. I don't always like her, but I love her).

So, you always have guilt about someone's death. I left 20 minutes before she died.

Why wasn't I there? Same thing with Dad. Why wasn't I there?

But I was there, and with baby brother. Soon enough, we're giggling and laughing and making jokes and  storytelling like idiots over the dying body of my mother. Maybe Mom went "these doofuses are not going to stop this racket", so check-out time.

Or maybe she enjoyed it. The great thing, the dynamic, the experience I had with Mom is I--

Okay, so a cat has kittens and if the kittens grow up with the cat, then you got a bunch of cats. And the cats are friends. Or not.

I got to be old cat Mom's old cat friend. Which makes me think the reason dogs don't tear us apart limb from limb is they think we are cats. Or raccoons.

She died on Dad's birthday. 5/12

Now it's just us. Now I'm the old cat.

I should go into acting, because now I have a sure fire  set of memories to turn the waterworks on.

You read that and you say wow he made it about himself.

Well, I am my mother's son.