Rebekah Speaks

  A daughter's perspective on her mother's journey home August 6: The text The text from Brooke, my niece, was waiting for me when I got finished with another slog through the woods. “Grandma is going to the ER. She’s vomiting dark stuff. Possibly a GI bleed.” An hour later: “Still vomiting. They’re doing blood work now.” Oh dear . My dear, sweet mother is in trouble. At 92, she struggles. Two years ago she had to move from independent living to the assisted care section of the retirement home. She is weary and worn. This once vibrant, energy-filled woman who could work circles around everyone can barely manage to use her walker to get to the bathroom. She is a cancer survivor and had a coronary stent placed back when she was about my age. She also had a pacemaker inserted some time ago, and reportedly has a leaky mitral valve. “There’s nothing they can do for me,” she mourns. I get the feeling she is disappointed when she wakes in the morning. She is ready to go home.

The house is quiet at 3:18 a.m. Outside, faint rumbles of thunder roll as lightening sporadically brightens the dark sky with jagged spears of light thrown from the heavens. I look outside to see if it is raining. It is not. But from my vantage point, my heart quickens to see a bear has come to visit, taking a seat by the sidewalk. But alas, a closer look informs my better senses that the black shape I view is simply the garden cart left there after weeding the edges. “Perhaps it is the lack of sleep that fools my eyes,” I think as I paddle bare-footed back to the sofa and the comforter spread out there. Sleep does not come easily though I wish it to. Some nights I fall asleep only to wake within an hour or two, restless and unable to fall back into the embrace of slumber. Other times, like tonight, I lay quietly in bed, jealously listening to my husband find his rest. When it becomes clear to me that I will not sleep, like a ninja I make my way to what has become my reading spot