That valentine’s day post needs to get pushed down and out of sight. It’s about time.
Weather balmy lately. Snow is almost gone; must be near 60 or even higher. It’s Friday and I’ll have to get back to work on Sunday, reading essays, doing prep work.
To Mt. P this week. Saw Mom who was full of word salad. I actually tried to record her talking, but can’t really pick it up on my cell phone. She was full of talk and laughter. Kept cracking up to the point of tears. We didn’t even know what we were laughing at, but it was all hysterically funny. She wanted to go. “Let’s go.” to lunch, to the cottage, outside, somewhere. It was the first time she’s mentioned the cottage in a while. The next day, she was dead asleep in her chair and did not much want to be bothered. But she seemed comfortable. She opened her eyes a bit at lunch and ate some. I think the days of talking and laughing wear her out.
Saw Hugh, who is on his last leg, dying from bladder cancer. They (doc’s at some cancer treatment center in Detroit) said there was nothing more they could do for him. He is at home with hospice; I never thought he could get any thinner, his face long and narrow. When I hugged him I could feel his spine sticking out; his shoulder blades and collar bones. But he is full of fluid: his stomach is bloated hard as a rock and huge and his legs and feet are hard and fat. He also has congestive heart failure and a kidney infection again. The first evening I saw him he was tired and his voice was weak. The next morning, he felt a little better, made me a cup of coffee, and we talked about Faulker’s As I Lay Dying. I loved it so much I’m reading it again. He wanted me to get a copy of it and set it by his bedside: He thought it’d be funny. But he also wants to read it and take notes for his own writing project. He wants to do more cooking. He is a little angry at the cancer center, for perhaps not doing all they could do. “I’m not going to let that go” but he’s so tired, he said.
So, there he is now, in his big brass bed, the one I wrote about in the Goddess essay (linked up here). He’s got lines running from his kidneys into bags taped to his legs and IV’s for a kidney infection. Right now, he’s only taking oral pain medication–morphine.
The first thing he said to me when I walked in was “I’m dying.” I’m not sure how I responded. A few weeks ago he acknowledged that he was dying “bit by bit” he said, but was hoping he’d be granted a reprieve. He was not as accepting this time, but not doing too bad. “I’m working it out,” he said. There’s a lot of things he wants to do. All seven of his children were there. I hadn’t seen them in a long, long time. They had a family counceling session. His children want him to go to Detroit. He wants to stay at home.
He has two room mates watching out for him and I think a few children hanging around, as well as hospice, who I’m sure will take good care of him. I tried to find As I Lay Dying at the Book Mark, but they didn’t have it. I’m tempted to find it and take it to him this weekend. I have no idea if he’ll last weeks or months. In the last two weeks, he’s weakened considerably and his face is shrinking; even his head feels small. I feel a little restless, like I’m not ready for him to go; I even told him that. He said “you and every body else.”
I worried that I won’t make it back to town to see him again.
