Something in my gut had shifted the minute I heard my sister’s voice on the phone. The last six weeks of my mom’s life were quiet, painful, and intimate in ways I’ll never forget. I was her caretaker, but more than that, I was her witness to life.
I helped her sort through her letters and bills when her hands shook too much. She kept everything in tidy folders, and I noticed once or twice that she’d update documents even when nothing seemed to change. ‘Just in case,’ she’d always say.
The first time, she dropped off a store-bought pie with a sticker still on it and didn’t stay long enough to take off her coat. The second time, she rummaged through the hall closet and took a box of old yearbooks and a few pieces of Mom’s jewelry she said she “didn’t want to get lost.”
She barely looked at Mom either time. “I just can’t see her like this,” she said at the doorway, shifting from foot to foot like the floor was too hot to stand on.
“It’s just too hard, Anna. I’m not strong like you.”Continue reading…
