My Mother is Dying

People who do not believe in demons have never seen a disease remove someone they love. Not kill them, but take them away slowly by destroying their ability to love the world around them. Arthritis has tormented my Mother for decades. The comfort everywhere within her where bone meets bone has dissolved. Joints that were once straight are now jarring angles. As her ability to walk in this world fades, as her ability to hold it in her hands fades her attachment to this world fades. There is little left of her consciousness but need, and fragments of dreams. When I sit beside her I can feel it coming; the world that does not contain her pride, the world without her love for her children, for animals, for the taste of sweet things. It is coming as sure as the earth is turning.
The only sudden thing in this process was my realization that there would no reckoning of the child's accounts of all the wrongs she had ever committed. I had carried them with me until it was to late for atonement. Too late for her even to say "I'm sorry". An accidental act of mercy. I have carried this ledger long enough to fear my own transgressions towards my child. To fear all the good I can do will be shattered by the wrong word an undeserved or ill considered comment, by doing nothing when something was needed. So on the pages where I have listed the debits to her character I will add ; She created children who love God and God's creations. A caring spirit is a rare and special thing and the formation of one is no accident. If you have this as as a possession there a debt is owed to those who love you. I will use this ledger now to light the pyre for all the things that never should never have come between us. To cleanse this world. To clear the way for her passage.
 A child knows what mother says is truth. It is their definition of the absolute that cannot be questioned. As you find yourself this is lost. But it is no easier to find the truth within yourself than it is to find your way in this world alone.Mother is the only objective truth you will ever know. Truth is in the dark months in the womb where there is only her. Truth that all the world is only one thing.