Notes from the Red Bird House

A new Keurig was delivered to my mom's apartment the day she died. The day before, it was Emeril Lagasse steaks and a Christmas centerpiece for her dining room table (because she wanted to smell a little of the season). The next day, a box with three bottles of wine arrived. There were Christmas cards on her desk for the her handyman and the young woman who cleaned her apartment. Even though she had Stage 4 breast cancer and an abdominal aortic aneurysm, my mom insisted upon living until the day she died. She could have pulled up stakes and packed it in months, even years, ago, but she didn't. She chose life. Until death left her with no choice.  The last "conversation" I had with my mom was about a woman. I put "conversation" in quotation marks because she was in no condition to listen much less talk. A ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm is painful and Mom chose to slide out of life as pain-free as possible. By the time I arrived last Thursday night, she...

It comes for all of us. If we're lucky. Right now, I'm not sure I feel lucky, but I know in the days, weeks, months, and years to come, I will come to realize that I am. Or I was. My parents are elderly, eighty-four and ninety-two. From where I'm sitting at the moment - my mother's hospital room - it's doubtful that my mom will reach tomorrow, much less eighty-five, So here I sit. And write...while  my biggest fan lays a few feet away snoring like a freight train. Her snores mean she's still alive so rather than drowning them out with music, I listen, Intently. Because each one could be her last. It's the drugs - her pain was pretty severe - making her sleep so soundly. These same drugs, the ones that keep the pain at bay, may also hasten her death. Her decision. She's been kicking cancer's a** for the past seven years. My mom's no sissy; she can endure. But this isn't the cancer, the known quantity. This is an aneurysm, a ticking time bomb...

I have a favorite spoon. And a bowl and a cooking utensil and a coffee cup. After speaking to a friend, I'm now on the lookout for a favorite fork. Why are they my favorites? I dunno really. They bring me comfort. For me, there's something about sameness; using the same thing, doing the same thing, eating the same thing over and over again. If I do something once/use something once, there's a good chance I'll do it again. And again. And it'll become habit. It's not that I have an addictive personality, even though some may see it that way. One taste of something and I'm hooked. But it's not like that. I'm not like that. I'm a control freak. There's no more concise way to say it. It's that control - the control I exercise over 99% of my life - that keeps me sane. Odd, right? Not really. Control equals sanity. I'm here to tell you that it sure didn't in the psychology textbooks I read in college. Control meant a "disease...