About one year ago, my mother came home from respite care with the hospice service I was using. While there for observation after a fall, she was medicated so heavily she was in a stupor and often did not recognize me when I went to visit. I always questioned how she could have been "observed" under such conditions.This photograph of the lace curtains in my mother's bedroom was taken in early May, about 2 months later. The green and yellow beyond the curtain speak of rebirth and new beginnings.
But on the bedroom side of the curtain, life was beginning to wane. There was a veil between life and the approaching transition.
This photograph is a poignant reminder of my mom's last days.
Seems so appropriate to close with a poem that was one of her favorites and was read at her Life Celebration.
PERFECTION WASTED
by John Updike
And another regrettable thing about death
is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,
which took a whole life to develop and market —
the quips, the witticisms, the slant
adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest
the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched
in the footlight glow, their laughter close to
tears,
their tears confused with their diamond
earrings,
their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat,
their response and your performance twinned.
The jokes over the phone. The memories packed
in the rapid-access file. The whole act.
Who will do it again? That's it: no one;
imitators and descendants aren't the same.
— in the New Yorker, 5/07/1990
