Completion

Until this moment, I can say that I have never really been this consciously aware of the energy of a person who is no longer interested in living.


She struggled just to pee on the pot. Struggled with her pants, struggled to sit, to wipe, to decide if she really was done, to stand, to sit again, to stand and sit one more time and finally to get herself "hitched" back up, as she would say. As I stood there, trying to be helpful, I said, "It's a lot of hard work to live, isn't it?" "Oh, you BET it is," she said, matter-of-factly, salted with a bit of ruefulness. "If I could, I'd just..well, I don't want to say die, like suicide, but...." "You just wish you could be done living?" "Yes. How old am I, after all?" "90," I answered, "but I don't think it's as much about age as completion." "Yes, that's a good way to think about that."

"Well," I said, as I continued to watch her laboriously deliberate movements, "I don't want you to die, but I also don't want to see you suffer." "Oh, you won't miss me." "You don't think so?" I returned, mind racing about her statement and what it really meant. "Well, you won't feel sorry for me, I hope. I'll be better off," she stated, not looking at me, but attending to her bathroom tasking. "Well, no, I won't feel sorry for you, but I will still have to adjust to being without my mother, you know." "Oh, well, yes, that makes sense."

She was finished...both with her bathroom needs and her conversation. She shuffled into bed and was asleep almost instantly.

I watched her, realizing that in every way, she is not about living any more. She no longer hungers over her paper, no longer looks forward to checking her email, no longer even seems to connect with the infinite tidbits of "normal" information coming to her. She seems to have one task...to get through the day doing only the things she absolutely must do.

What good are commercials to one who is no longer interested in living? What good are the many amazing videos depicting wonderful things people are doing, places to see in the world, amusing anecdotes, poignant life moments when these things are strictly for the one who needs this information to live a better, fuller, more meaningful life? What if you feel your life is complete as is? What if you really, truly, have no more living to accomplish?

This is where my mother is.