Dance The Dance, Love The Love

And now, I’m glad I didn’t know / The way it all would end / The way it all would go / Our lives are better left to chance / I could have missed the pain / But I’da had to miss / The dance”

– Garth Brooks, The Dance

Facebook memories again… reminding me how everything played out two years ago:

“No new news to share about Mommy. She’s in good hands with her medical team… Mommy and I finished reading The Little Prince, and I’ve been reading her morning and evening prayers to her because those bring her comfort. She seemed pleased to see that I haven’t forgotten the Our Father or Glory Be. We listened to a bunch of music this afternoon – mostly Francis Lai and Henry Mancini. We finished with Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Call me Spinderella, haha. Mommy slept more today than yesterday, which is good. She needs rest to combat her infections. On a good note, no high fever today. Go, Mommy! Thanks for all the love, kindness, and caring for my mom.”

Looking back / on the memory of / The dance we shared / beneath the stars above / For a moment / all the world was right / How could I have known / that you’d ever say goodbye?”

– Garth Brooks, The Dance

I can look back and remember feeling how important it was to me to focus on what I could do to help my mom feel comfortable and do for her what she could not do for herself. I guess as her daughter, I had the hospital-recognized privilege of staying by her side, which allowed me to actively participate in her care rather than passively offer thoughts and prayers. (And don’t get me wrong… thoughts and prayers have value, but if I am able to, I do things for someone else’s needs either in addition to or in lieu of thinking, praying, sending light and love…)

The present moments were the only thing certain and the only time that mattered. My mom couldn’t read her own prayer books, and when I brought them from the house and showed them to her, I remember her closing her eyes and giving me the slightest nod and pleased “smile” even while intubated when I offered to read them to her.

I wouldn’t even say that I had an optimistic or pessimistic outlook. What would be would be. At that point, I knew the obvious – her condition could go either way – but why invest any energy in trying to see the future?

Holding you / I held everything / For a moment wasn’t I the king / If I’d only know how the king would fall / Hey, who’s to say / You know I might have changed it all”

– Garth Brooks, The Dance

During my mom’s hospitalization, we didn’t know how her condition would change by day or even by hour. I still feel very strongly that she deserved to be the queen in every moment, and I stayed mindful to not get ahead of myself with what ifs and the possibility that she would not recover.

In those moments, it was never about me. Mommy was the only one who mattered.

Being strong for someone else sucks. And really, my mom was so sedated, she couldn’t say whether she hoped to recover or if she was just thinking she had enough of that shit and was ready to go. She and my dad wrote and signed their advanced care directives more than a decade before, and I feel grateful to my parents for that gift of making their wishes clear so no one had to guess what they wanted or if we were making the right choice for them. Seriously. That was one of the most loving things they did.

And yes, I felt sad when I thought about the reality that everything was changing, and I felt scared about the inevitable that my mom often reminded me about by saying, “We are on borrowed time”. Even in the times when she was most likely trying to be manipulative and throw a guilt trip, she was right. All we had was the present. (By the way, learning not to take the guilt-trip bait as well as healing from and letting go of the past are stories for another day.)

Sigh… everything else I have to say is about love… I think I said it already in other posts… Someone Else’s Needs… Now is All We Have, But Love Never Dies… Rolling the Dice on Love… Perspectives and Ideas: Give Yourself Room to Learn, Grow, and Love… and yesterday’s post, Love Is…

I reckon I’ll write another post tomorrow when Facebook reminds me what I chose to share, but I remember the dates. And I remember that two years ago, the next day was one of those days when things changed by the hour.

Luceat lux vestra.