Last Night

Somehow your mother knew the first time she held you in her arms, outside of herself: you would be there until the end. She yelled at the nurse for being harsh and clinical as they placed you in the incubator. No one could blame her. Not even the nurse.

You yelled at a nurse tonight for being cold. Doesn't she see what's happening? This is YOUR mother. YOUR mother is on life support. How can this lady be so mean? Your father cried and told you the story of your mother yelling at the nurse the day you were born.

This is your mother's last night alive.

It happened quickly, over the course of a few weeks. She collapsed and never woke up. She's still warm and a machine is doing the work of her heart and lungs. This isn't what she wants for her life. She made that decision for herself. That is clear. But she still seems to be in there.

Tomorrow, they will turn off the machines and let her drift away.

...

I picked you up at the hospital. I couldn't let you take a train back to your brother's place. We drove through the night-lit streets of Camden on to the highway. I pointed out Walt Whitman's graveyard. We stopped at a bar and got a drink, surrounded by the aged faces of people we'd seen in high school hallways a decade and a half earlier. We laughed at the preposterous things guys do for attention. We laughed until tears wet our cheeks. We wondered where the time went. How did everyone get so old?

It's a beautiful night. There's a full moon and the promise of Spring ahead if we're patient. The quiet of Winter is lingering in the air, keeping it crisp and so very silent. It's a good night to be alive. It's a good night to share with a friend.

If I could slow down time or stop it all together - no, I wouldn't do that. I couldn't. It would be winter forever and I couldn't bear it. We would grow sick of the lack of change. The world needs change. It needs dying as much as it needs birth.

...

Tomorrow, as your mother drifts away peacefully, surrounded by her lovely family, remember the words I paraphrased from John Hodgman but can't seem to find now that I'm home and on my computer:
"The last lesson your parents will teach you is how to die."