Day three

Well, it is time to advertise that I have a blog! I noticed yesterday that I am very proud of writing daily but not too sure about having others read what I write! So, I decided to just get over it and put it on facebook as well as sending an email to all of my contacts! I keep saying that the goal is to get my commitment to altering the conversation on death so far out there that I have to chase it! It will have a life of it's own! So today is the day that we (I) invite a dialogue. Oh the drama of it all!

I really want the the writing to be more fun and playful! I notice that I do have a tendency to be quite serious about the subject. Maybe that is part of the issue with our conversations regarding death, too serious? Not that death is not serious but I fail at times to see the humor or I do see the humor and others do not want me to share it. Not reverent. When my mother was dying of Leukemia, she would not allow my brother to call for an ambulance but insisted he take her to the hospital. She didn't want the neighbors to know her business. Now I think that is funny and a great example of who my mother was. Even in death she was about her pride, a staple of her character. After she arrived and was put in a room in the emergency room a young female doctor came in and asked "What brings you to the hospital today Mrs. Gillis?" and my mother not missing a beat replies "My son". My brother and I crack up and the doctor continues on with her condesending sing song style and my mother giving as good as she is getting until I decide to step in and point out to the doctor that perhaps ahe woul like to look at the chart and see that my mother has leukemia. My mother died the next day with all of us there but not until we all left the room. Knowing her she didn't what her children to watch her die and I am sure she chose to die in the hospital so the neighbors would know her business! I think she also wanted to protect her adult children from having to deal with her death at home.

She never wanted to know she was dying and would not talk about it. She made that perfectly clear from the time she was diagnosed until she died. Given that she and I had some really great moments during those six months, moments we had never shared in the 55 years I knew her. In her death I became aware of the importance of being complete. I had taken the opportunity to say and do all that I had wanted to for years and feel that she too had seized the opportunity. Her way to intimacy was through her humor, a dry, slightly sarcastic humor. She thought it was funny that while in the hospital doing chemo, she would, at times, sleep with her eyes open which you can imagine use to scare the late night orderly. She looked dead. Only my mother would think that was funny, but it was also her way of coming to terms with her near future.

Well, that is it for today! I never seem to know what will slide out of my mind and out through my fingers!