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April 24, 2005
Time and water, Sunday, April 24, 2005, 5:24 PM
I have always had the ability to put a smile on my mother's face, until yesterday.
Yesterday is a day I will always remember as being the day I first looked into my mother's eyes and could see she didn't recognize me. It was an emotional experience like no other I have ever had.
In barely audible whispers, she talked repeatedly about there being not enough time for something, anything, but mostly from what I could understand, about water, and the need to do something now.
She said she wanted to get into the water. She wanted to drink water. She would just repeat the word water, and the word time. She had no emotion. She was hallucinating.
Everything that is left in her life, now, apparently is about time and water. I thought about that a lot today because I didn't want to dwell on what faces us shortly.
You can live without emotion, maybe. But, time and water are life's most precious possessions; both flow (but does either really change?), and when you run out, you die.
I guess that was my mother's way of telling me she is still alive, although from her eyes, yesterday, I could not see it.
A week ago she told me her time was up. She was somewhat lucid, but that was a week ago.
Posted by Posted by Bill Cara on April 24, 2005 05:30:21 PM | Category: Cara re: Cara
Discourse
Bill,Thank for your thoughts.God Bless you and yours.
Posted by: Bob Bohen at April 24, 2005 8:14 PM [link]
Blessings for you and your family around your mother's health.
-Mike Wilmot
Posted by: mike_wilmot at April 24, 2005 9:34 PM [link]
Bill,
I wish you much courage and strength in facing the next few days - and our thoughts are with you.
Kaushik
Posted by: Kaushik at April 25, 2005 2:15 AM [link]
I never miss your commentary....
Now I know why I find your world view so compelling. I hold you in high esteem for your compassionate philosophical equanimity.
Bless you.
Posted by: paul willis at April 25, 2005 3:21 AM [link]
Life and Death
I THOUGHT of death beside the lonely sea
That went beyond the limit of my sight,
Seeming the image of his mastery,
The semblance of his huge and gloomy might.
But firm beneath the sea went the great earth,
With sober bulk and adamantine hold,
The water but a mantle for her girth,
That played about her splendor fold on fold.
And life seemed like this dear familiar shore
That stretched from the wet sand's last wavy crease,
Beneath the sea's remote and sombre roar,
To inland stillness and the wilds of peace.
Death seems triumphant only here and there;
Life is the sovereign presence everywhere.
Duncan Campbell Scott (1862-1947)
Posted by: Keith Nelson at April 25, 2005 7:03 AM [link]
Bill (sorry for my english, I am argentinean). I recently lost my father and I can understand perfectly well the confusion and sadness when U have not been recognized by your mother. I cannot forget when the doctor asked my father 'who is him?' and pointed at me. and my father said 'my brother'. I can also remember the feeling of being useless as never before, because U need to make somebody feels good, but U can't do nothing to help that person. my father had some sort of brain damage, and he just looked confused, without pain, and really trying to look like if he was understanding what was happening, but he just can't remembered the headlines of a newspaper read 5 minutes before.
I really appreciate your blog, as I work at the markets and U cannot imagine the help U give.
Talking about my father, and your mother, again. I don't know which is the 'better' way to finish a life. All I know is that is always sad.
Be strong.
Posted by: J. Colman at April 25, 2005 10:01 AM [link]
I admire you very much for your blog, and never more so than now. Your readers' thoughts and prayers are with you.
Posted by: Liz L. at April 24, 2005 7:55 PM [link]