My mom is dying.
My father-in-law died in October 2020. I remember his last days well.
Love. Gratitude. “What did I do to deserve such a wonderful life?”
My mom is having a different experience.
As her heart fails, as she comes in and out of consciousness, she has been saying some revealing things.
“I wish I had more courage.”
“Why am I so afraid all the time?”
“I wish I knew how young I still was when your father died.”
She was 52. She’s now 90.
My mom lived a small, fearful life, which I observed mostly from afar. She has told me stories, while we sit together in a darkened hospital room for hours at a time, that remind me how deep her fear goes.
Her mother never taught her to clean her room. She always cleaned up after her, because my mom could never clean to suit her. Same for cooking. Everyone thought my grandmother was a wonderful cook.
My mom told me her mother paid her one compliment in her entire life. She remembered exactly what it was.
She was able to turn a cape into a skirt.
What she learned is that nothing she did was ever good enough. She passed parts of that on to me, though I somehow learned to try harder rather than give up.
She was afraid to learn to drive. My grandfather, and later my father, drove her everywhere.
She has lived alone, with very few friends, since my father died in 1988.
She lost her hearing years ago and was afraid to spend money on hearing aids. She moved into a retirement community in late 2022. It’s hard to make friends when you can’t hear them.
She has gradually lost her sight and is afraid of the cataract surgery. She can’t do the things she once loved. Reading, crossword puzzles, board games.
Therapy was not to be discussed. Medication, only very recently.
She lived a life full of anxiety and handled it by making her life smaller and smaller.
Yesterday she told me how much she wished she’d had a relationship with my children.
The ones whose visits she refused for years.
My father-in-law was afraid, too. But he threw himself into his fears.
From Navy pilot in his youth to Alaska Harley tours in his seventies.
I know which path I want. She never thought she was choosing.