Last Words

I said goodbye today.

I dropped in at the nursing home this morning, hoping to see if my mother was up to a little outing. Lunch at the local Wendy’s.

She was taking a morning nap, but then got up and was prepped for a shower.  After which she looked still in need of a nap.

I came back mid afternoon. And she had just tucked herself in bed, for what she thought was the night—she had one her nightgown. Three o’clock in the afternoon meant nothing to her.

But it was time to saw goodbye so I sat on her bed and talked.  I was going back to Chicago, I explained.

“That’s a long way,” she said.

I agreed.

I told her I’d be back to see her. Maybe in the summertime. I told her I loved her.

“I love you too,” she said. A complete sentence. That made sense.

And then I left her to her nap. Not really knowing when I will be back. Not really knowing when we will speak again. Not knowing if . . .

I remember other goodbyes. That I didn’t necessarily know were real goodbyes.

My friend Janet. She was dying. I was spending dome nights at her house, giving her daughter’s a break from caretaking.  That night we watched a DVD together.  Then it was time for me to leave. Another caretaker had arrived.

“I love you heaps,” she said. (She’d never said anything like that before.)

And then I slipped out into the night.  And the next day, she eased out of  consciousness, and then was gone the following day.

Another friend whom I’d driven to Florida, had a poor prognosis. She called me up one day, her voice hard to understand from the morphine, perhaps.

“I’m going to die tomorrow,” she told me.

I didn’t know how to respond. She’d been given six months. I didn’t quite . . .

“I love you,” she said.

And the conversation was over. And yes, the next day she did die. A year later I discovered most likely an assisted suicide.

And the last time with my friend Rita, we took a little walk down the block and back. It was spring. She marveled over the flowers blooming. The birds in the trees. We stopped to listen to them.

She gave me a touch of spring  that I will always remember. An achingly slow meander down the street, her arm in mine. And moments to absorb the sites and sounds and smells.

A gift.

The year ends. A goodbye. A commitment to appreciating the moment.