Hello Dear Reader,
A few days ago I went to see my mom. She has been in a skilled nursing facility since December. While I have certainly teared up and been a little weepy from time to time over the state of her disease (severe early onset dementia/alzheimers), seeing her the other day made me sob. Big, sloppy, uncontrollable, scare the children sobs.
The imminence of her death is obvious. Her hip bone is clearly visible even underneath the blanket and I swear you can see the head of her femur where it meets her hip. She is curled up in the fetal position and cried when I rubbed her and held her hand. It was awful.
She is officially on palliative care now which means she has been taken off all of her meds and is now just being given pain medication to keep her comfortable.
I was talking with a friend about the latest with my mom and she asked why I thought I was finally having/letting myself have this reaction. I think there are a couple of reasons. First, obviously, is that she looks so much closer to death. (Although in the days I have seen her since she has looked much better.) Secondly, I believe it is because of my regular yoga and meditation practice.
Over the past two months I have worked to establish a regular yoga and meditation habit. A big part of that practice has included lovingkindness and forgiveness meditation. I know that this has enabled me to open myself up to the inevitable - hopefully with compassion and kindness for my mom, myself, and the rest of my family as well.
There is something very freeing and kind of refreshing about being cracked open.
Write openly,
Jessica
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