It's all temporary

Talking to my mom today, when the topic of death came up. Specifically we were talking about Pixie, her 14 year old Yorkie. Poor Pixie can't see or hear much anymore. She has cataracts in both eyes, and I'm pretty sure that her vision is better than her hearing.  She's missing teeth and her breath smells like rot. Mom can't really do much about her oral hygiene because her mouth is so small. Pixie is only about 5 lbs. Mom was telling me how Pixie must have thought that the bedroom nightstand was Mom, because she was reaching up trying to be picked up by it. Pixie has been Mom's baby for ever. So we were talking about Pixie, and how she's slowly breaking down and is likely going to die soon. I started thinking about how Mom will cope when Pixie dies, and then started thinking about how Death impacts the lives of those it takes but for everyone else nothing changes. I'll be honest, I was thinking about how it'll be sad when Pixie dies but that it won't really be a loss for me even though Mom will be devastated. Then of course I started thinking about when Mom dies, how my life will be forever and irrevocably changed but the rest of the world will continue on as always has. Death is a normal and natural part of life. People die every day, every hour. Every second someone loses their mom, their child, their sibling, their friend. That's just the way life is.

I can't yet tease out how that makes me feel: is this coming to term with my own mortality? Is recognizing your parents' mortality a checkpoint in life? I'm to the point where I know my mother is going to die early, much earlier than I had ever thought she would. And I will be devastated.  I've spent most of my adulthood away from her but I've always known that she was there as a safety net in case things didn't work out.  Soon I won't have that anymore.

She was diagnosed in January 2017. I imagined myself as a kite without it's string, tossed around by strong winds and no way to get back home. What would I even consider "home" to be without my mom. She's always been home base. Without her, where do I go? Where do I belong?

And what of her? She has lived this life, she has had these experiences, she has sacrificed and worked so hard and yet has not been able to enjoy the fruits of her labor. Any dream of indulgent twilight years has been slowly smothered by an insidious persistent cough.

She's getting worse. I can tell. We talk every day, and I ask how she's feeling or how she's been and her response is always "I'm alright". She's not alright.

So, just as Mom is going to mourn Pixie's death one day and the world won't blink. I'm going to mourn my mother's death, and the world won't blink.