By this, I know you love me

It's been a long hard 36 hours. About 36 hours ago, I received a call from the nursing home telling me to come in, she's dying.

I hopped out of the tub, swished a towel over my dripping bod and threw some cloths on, and drove to the nursing home with several thoughts running through my head as fast as my car was running down the road.

It's over, she'll finally find rest:

It's over, I'll finally find rest:

I hope I can get my hair combed out after it gets dry:

I wonder if she'll be alive when I get there...

She was alive when I got there, in great distress. Hospice was there, along with most of the night crew of the nursing home. Ah, a party in Mom's room! She'll appreciate the attention, or will she?

The 'death rattle' was very loud and distressing to all of us. A handful of sad eyes watched me come, the party parted like the red sea so I could get to her side. They gave me her vitals, pretty darned good reading for a dying person, and showed me her leg, all black from lack of oxygen. Ok, it'll be over soon.

As the hours dragged by, the nurses and hospice noted that only one leg had turned black and cold, "I've never seen anything like it, one leg bad, one leg good, usually oxygen deprivation is bilateral", they told me. Yeah, well, Mom has to be different.

Nursing staff stopped in after hours, one lady on the way home from watching her grandson play a ball game, the administrator stayed long past her 'going home' time, actually she stayed till 3am. Hmm, these people really like 'Miss LaDonna'! Everyone had tears, oh, Miss LaDonna was their best resident, never complained, the sickest one in the home, blah-blah...

I started reviewing, in my mind, the past. Life with her as a child, as an adult and mostly life over the past 9 months since she came here. I looked around at the mountain of stuff we had brought her that she never used. Oh, how much stuff I have to pack up and take home. Throw it out? Give it away? Take it to a yard sale? I was beginning to see what I would be doing for the next several weeks after I buried her. Oh, yeah, give my brother back his radio and electric blanket. Hoorah, that much is figured out!

I remembered my sister, helping her move stuff around when she was here at the house, helping her pack for her new life at the nursing home. One sentence FS said to her rides along in my mind, "Hold on Mom, you're moving at lightning speed, I can't keep up", were FS's words to Mom as orders were snapped out one on top of the other.

I thought of the electric keyboard in her room, here at the house. Mom wanted it moved around in her room, to make it easier to play. She never touched it. Then she wanted it moved to the living room, so she could play it out there. Oh, and put this stand here and bring that over here, put this in that drawer, get me a power cord.... run, run, back and forth, from her room to the living room, move stuff around, finally wear her out and get peace as she finally put her busy head on the pillow and took a break.

She never used that stuff, eventually asking to have it moved back into her room. This time it was older brother running at 'lightning speed' trying to keep up with her instructions and please her.

Rearranging the house several times, asking for meals that never got eaten, requesting items from a store that was almost 40 miles away, (sometimes stuff that ended up being food for the pet rat), bring me this, go get that, turn the TV up, down, change the channel, that was her main activity here.

What the heck is up with this woman, anyway? Then I remembered going to visit her on the way back from California in my truck. I got permission(from her landlady) to park a Peterbuilt at her house. How was the visit? Well, pretty good, short, only 7 hours, (all I could take, to be honest), but during the visit she decided I needed to go grocery shopping for her. What? "Don't you get your groceries delivered", I asked. Well, yeah, but she wanted ME to go for her. I reminded her that all I had was a big truck. So what, go anyway, was the end result.

So I go to the store, in a 379 Peterbuilt with a 72 inch bunk. That's the truck with the big square nose, L-O-N-G nose, with a Condo Sleeper, big, big. I dragged 7 bags of groceries out and was piling them in the truck, fully aware that I was getting stares of astonishment from other shoppers. This was a small town, big trucks aren't a regular sight there!

So here she lies, in the bed, should have been dead a week ago, and surely shouldn't be alive with one dead leg, shut-down kidneys and no real food for the last few weeks. Blood pressure 118-over-48. 48, geez, that's low! But she's still alive, getting turned, re-arranged, diaper checked, morphine given, and lots of kisses, touches, and 'I love You's" from the staff.

Why? My answer? By moving stuff around over and over, buying stuff that won't be used, and all this fussing over her at the nursing home, by all that, she knows she is loved. What are her last un-spoken words to the world?

"Do this for me and I'll know you love me".