Today the hospice nurse checked Mom over and pronounced her recovering from the worst of the crisis. Which means, really, that she’ll probably stabilize but not necessarily improve. After hearing the news I found myself so tired that I left her house at 4 to come back to Crowman’s and do nothing but lay in bed and watch movies.
If she seems fine tomorrow I’ll probably look for the next available flight back to SF. Back to my “life”, as it were. Though I don’t welcome returning to work as though this never happened, I can’t handle hanging around Mom and Lee’s house much longer. My brother acted even more quickly; he left tonight for Albuquerque. I haven’t really mentioned that when the kids began to postpone our return flights, Lee asked me to tell him to stay with a friend’s instead of remaining in her house.
“I can’t be stumbling around people anymore,” is what she said, although she let her own children remain. Would she have asked me to leave, too, if I wasn’t already staying with Crowman? I don’t know, and quite honestly I’m so tired of her resentments towards my brother (and putting me in the middle) that I want to make this week the last of my supporting roles in that drama. Just being in the house is a strain, and I find myself wanting Mom’s struggle to be over, both for her comfort and for ours.
And yet.
I try to imagine what I’ll feel after she dies, what my days will look like, what colors they will carry.
And I imagine me alone somewhere, traveling, maybe with Louie, going anywhere and nowhere and back again